Scars
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: "Shots fired! Repeat, shots fired!" An ambulance was called for a possible gunshot victim. Hank Voight followed the echoes of somebody screaming in pain or terror. There was someone crouched down by the curb. Voight shone his light on the figure, and he felt his eyes widen. "Oh my God, it's Matt Casey!" Warning: character death.
1. Chapter 1

A/N(a): My apologies in advance to the Gabby Dawson fans who are going to read this story.

A/N(b): This story was also (indirectly) partially inspired by FrankieFandom's "Just an Accident". Hope you enjoy though the subject matter may make that difficult. Please read and review!

Scars

"10-1, 10-1! Shots fired! Repeat, shots fired!"

Kevin Atwater and Adam Ruzek ran through the darkened streets and chased after the two dealers who were firing at them, returning a few shots of their own, hoping if nothing else, to slow the two punks down, at worst, to take them out permanently if need be. Intelligence had been investigating a string of heroin deaths and tied the batch everybody was OD'ing on back to a ring of small time dealers cutting in on the competition. They'd set up a buy for $50,000 worth of blow, when they made the bust, Antonio and Halstead had managed to nab most of the ring but two of them had managed to get away, and Atwater and Ruzek were now in pursuit of them. And given how many people, how many kids, have been dropping dead from the product they pushed, neither was too particular about if they brought these sons of bitches in alive or not, especially since they had five other members to haul in already. Around them the two cops heard the ricochet of bullets pinging off the cars parked on the street, among other things. Fortunately the streets were pretty empty in this neighborhood at this time of night and there wasn't anyone else around so they didn't have to worry about any bystanders getting caught in the crossfire. Unfortunately as far as they could tell, their own bullets were also missing all their marks, because the dealers weren't slowing down any. The two cops chased them five straight blocks, then they came to a sudden stop as gunfire opened on them from the other direction, and that turned out to be Hank Voight making his entrance from around the corner.

"Chicago PD, get your ass on the ground!" Voight ordered the two dealers.

"I'm hit!" the 20-something skinny white punk covered in tattoos said as he and his Latino partner dropped their guns and assumed the position of raising their hands behind their heads.

"You'll get another hit if you don't get your ass on the ground!" Voight told him with a pronounced kick that knocked the dealer's foot out from under him.

As soon as the last word left his lips, Voight and his men heard the sound of somebody screaming from nearby, it sounded like one block up. Ruzek called for an ambo and gave their location and told dispatch they had a possible gunshot victim.

"Cuff them," Voight told his detectives, "I'll check it out."

He kept his gun raised and his flashlight on as he followed the echoing wails of somebody screaming either in pain or terror. The neighborhood their botched sting had taken place in was poorly lit, half of the street lamps had been shot out. In the middle of the block, coming out of an alleyway between two buildings, there was a form crouched down by the curb. Voight shone his light on the figure, and he felt his eyes widen.

"Oh my God, Matt!"

Matt Casey was crumpled on the sidewalk, collapsed on his knees, his head tucked into his chest and just about to fall over, simultaneously screaming and crying hysterically. Voight holstered his gun and ran over to see if the fireman had been hit in the crossfire.

"Casey, are you alright?" Voight asked as he made his way over to the younger man. He used his flashlight to look Matt over for any injuries. As far as he could tell, Casey didn't have a drop of blood on him, but he looked awful.

"What're you doing here, Matt?" Hank asked as he tried to get Casey to focus. It was then that he realized Casey was dressed in his pajamas and his feet were bare, what the hell was going on?

Casey just now seemed to notice the Intelligence sergeant, and he screamed even louder and tried to get up, but he fell back on his knees. Voight grabbed him and tried to restrain the lieutenant. Off in the distance he could hear approaching sirens. He could feel tremors running through Casey's body and against his own, synchronized with the shaky sobs that were the only sound coming out of Casey's mouth.

"Take it easy, Matt, the medics will check you over, it's going to be alright," Voight assured him, positive that the young fireman was in shock. Living in Chicago, being shot at was practically a norm, but people still had their breaking points.

Matt took in a large breath, and yelled incoherently as he pointed to something up the street. Voight turned, expecting to see another one of the dealers he and his crew had set out to bust that night, or some other lowlife of the city, gun drawn and about to open fire. Instead, he saw another form laying in the street half a block up from them.

"Stay here," he told Matt as he let go of him and went to see what was going on.

Casey fell back on the sidewalk, a hysterical, screaming mess, unable to move from his spot.

Voight lowered the angle of his flashlight, and he felt his heart pound against his chest.

"Oh my God," he said in horror.

Gabby Dawson was laying in the street covered in blood, hardly recognizable, pieces of flesh gone from her face and pieces of bones scattered in the blood, an apparent victim of the bullets that had been flying during the chase, he couldn't even count how many times she'd been shot, though he could tell at least four for sure.

As many years as Voight was a cop, he knew what he knew, but he also knew to always check and make sure. He crouched down and touched his index and middle fingers against her neck and felt for a pulse.

She was gone.

Casey was finally able to form actual words, and what he said made Voight's blood run cold.

"Is she dead? Oh God, is she dead?"

The ambulance pulled up, Voight signaled for them to stay with Casey, he got on his radio and told Halstead and Antonio to stay out of the area, he'd explain why later. By now Ruzek and Atwater were coming upon the scene with the two handcuffed dealers in tow.

"Oh my God," Adam said as he took in the sight before them.

Voight turned to his men. "Did either of you see her? Did you see either of them?"

Both men shook their heads.

"We didn't see anyone, sarge," Kevin answered, "Just those two we were chasing."

They heard a car coming up the street, Voight turned and saw a familiar blue Mustang pull up at the curb, and Kelly Severide got out. Voight headed over to him and asked, "What're you doing here, Severide?"

"I was a couple blocks away when I heard the sirens, I came to see if there was anything-oh my God, is that Gabby?"

"Don't," Voight grabbed Severide just as he started to run. Kelly struggled with him and tried to push past him, but Voight stood his ground. "Don't...you can't help her." He shook his head, and the point finally got across.

"What? What happened?" Kelly felt his eyes stinging with the onset of tears and felt his heart pulsating somewhere between his chest and his throat.

"That's what we're trying to find out."

"No! Not Gabby!"

"I'm very sorry, Kelly."

Kelly turned, and just now saw Casey for the first time and he broke loose from Voight and ran over to Matt, and skidded to a stop on his knees right beside him. Casey had been fighting with the paramedics, but when he saw Kelly, he forgot about them and latched onto his best friend and dropped his head on Kelly's shoulder as he mournfully sobbed, "She's dead...she's dead, oh God, she's dead."

Kelly hugged Matt and didn't know what to say other than, "I'm sorry, buddy." He was feeling just as lost, stuff like this didn't happen to them, it happened to people they saved, people they tried to save, never to one of their own.

The paramedics came over to examine Casey, and when he saw them he got violent and swung at them, almost chanting maniacally, "No-no-no-no-no!"

"Matt, it's alright," Kelly told him, forcing himself to remain calm, "they're going to make sure you're okay."

"No-no-no," Matt practically barked at him before burying his head in Kelly's shoulder again, "is she dead? Is she really dead?"

Severide could feel Casey shaking, and he could also feel the gooseflesh bubbling on his arms. He himself felt like he'd just had a bucket of ice water poured on him. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be real.

Kelly turned his head and saw Voight coming over towards them, now what?

"They're gonna take Casey to Med," Hank told him, "I'll be along later when he's had a chance to calm down, we need to ask him some questions."

"I'm going with him," Kelly said, refusing to let go of Matt, who right now didn't seem able to stand up on his own.

"That's going to be up to the paramedics," Voight kept his cool, well aware how hard this was for Severide.

Kelly's eyes suddenly widened in horror as he realized, "Antonio-"

"I'll break the news to Antonio," Voight said.

Kelly merely nodded in response, and he had to help restrain Casey while the paramedics got him on a gurney.

"It's going to be alright, Casey, I'm gonna ride with you," Severide told him, trying very hard and failing miserably to hold back the tears audible in his throat, as well as the ones welling up in his eyes.

Voight watched as the ambulance pulled out, their sirens blaring again, then he turned back to the bullet riddled body of Gabriela Dawson, and he personally felt like he was going to be sick. But he had to be professional about it, he told Atwater and Ruzek, "I'll call in another ambo, and CSU and some patrolmen to help with the canvass, let's find out if anybody around here saw or heard anything that could explain what she and Matt Casey were doing here."

"On it, sarge," Atwater said, he and Ruzek both visibly shocked by what had happened.

Voight glanced back at the body of the young woman again, and he dreaded what he had to do now. There was no way to pinpoint how Antonio was going to take the news, but Hank decided to err on the side of caution, and called in another ambo, so there'd be somebody standing by who could restrain and/or sedate Antonio if need be, and once he found out his sister had been murdered in the chase, Hank felt certain it _would_ be necessary.

* * *

Antonio was on his way to Med and would be kept in a 72 hour psyche hold. He'd taken the news about as badly as Hank had figured, and right now he didn't want to take any chances that Dawson would do anything drastic in his grief. In his gut he knew he did the right thing but he was having a hard time not feeling like he'd just betrayed the detective. He returned to the scene, EMS had taken Gabby away earlier, but her blood remained on the pavement. Everybody else from Intelligence was there and just barely able to hold it together. As far as they were concerned, this had been one of their own that had been killed. Unfortunately there was the question had Gabby been hit by the dealers' bullets, or Ruzek and Atwater's, or both? Nothing would be certain until the ballistics report was in, though an educated guess had been made based on the position of Gabby's body on the street, from what was presumed to be the angle she was standing at when hit, and so far it was leaning towards Kevin and Adam being in the clear, but nobody was going to be satisfied until the final report was in.

"Any witnesses?" Voight asked.

Halstead cleared his throat, "Same old, nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody will testify to anything...there are a few people on this block with security cameras, we're pulling the footage now."

"Good." Right now he'd take anything they could get.

"CSU only found Gabby's blood around here, apparently Casey wasn't hit," Jay added.

"That's something," Voight said, "but what the hell were they doing out here? And why...Gabby was still dressed, Casey looked like he jumped out of bed, why?"

Everyone looked at each other and tried to consider the possibilities.

"Maybe we need to go check out the apartment," Atwater suggested.

Voight had never been to Casey's apartment, not since the whole Jack Nesbitt ordeal when a murdered woman's body was found there anyway, but he kept tabs on his people and theirs, and he knew that the apartment Matt and Gabby lived in was about a mile from that neighborhood. He couldn't think of any reason the two of them would come this far on foot, if someone had broken into their apartment, if a fire had broken out at the apartment, none of it added up. But he hoped Atwater was right and they'd be able to find some answers.

Before he could answer, his phone buzzed, the number got his attention and he took the call. A minute later he hung up and told the others, "There's been a development at Med."

* * *

Maggie was waiting when he entered through the automatic doors.

"What's going on, Maggie?" Voight asked.

"Everybody here is trying not to lose it, we all loved Gabby."

Voight nodded. "How's Matt doing?"

"I'm not sure," she told him. "He's being examined right now."

"Was he shot?"

"No. But EMS said he went into seizures on the way here."

Voight squinted one eye, "How'd that happen?"

"They don't know. At first they thought it might've been an adverse reaction to the drugs they were giving him to calm him down...but it sounds more like some kind of interaction with something else."

"Well I happen to know Matt Casey doesn't take drugs," Voight said.

"I know," Maggie told him. "Kelly is beside himself right now-"

"Where's he?"

"A cop has been assigned to Casey's room to get a statement from him whenever he's able to talk, so far nobody except the medical personnel is allowed in there. Severide's calling the others to let them know what happened, I expect we'll have a waiting room full of firefighters in about an hour," Maggie said.

"Later I need to get a statement from Kelly," Voight said.

"Was he there when it happened?" Maggie asked.

"He was nearby, I'm wondering if he might've seen anything. But what'd you call me for?"

"As I was saying, Kelly's not good for much right now, but Casey started throwing up and Severide told us that Casey's had the flu all week. Apparently it's so bad he had to take off last shift."

And that would explain anyway why Casey wasn't dressed. Voight was starting to put the pieces together. "And if he has it that bad...he might be taking something over the counter to deal with it that could've interacted with the drugs the paramedics gave him."

"And Kelly is in _no_ condition to drive, and there's nobody else that can go to the apartment to see what medicine he's on," Maggie said.

"Funny you mention that, I was just heading over there to see if I can find out what's going on...I don't suppose Casey said anything."

"He's alternating between throwing up, screaming and crying," Maggie shook her head, "no, he can't tell us anything. As a precaution, we're running a tox screen, but if you can find out what if anything he's on before that, it would help us a lot."

"Will do, Maggie."

"Hank...please tell me you got the bastard that killed Gabby."

"I hope so, Maggie...I hope so."

"Hey!"

Voight and Maggie turned and saw Kelly standing in the middle of the corridor.

"What's the deal? Why won't they let me in to see Casey?"

"Standard procedure, Casey could be an eyewitness to what happened, when he's able to talk we need a statement."

"A _statement_?" Kelly looked ready to hit the ceiling. "He's losing it in there, somebody needs to be with him."

Hank and Maggie looked at each other and Voight told Severide, "Follow me."

They went down the hall to Casey's room, even before Voight entered he could hear Matt's hysterical sobs. He addressed the patrolman standing beside the door, flashed his badge and told her, "Take a walk."

"Sergeant, all due respect, I have to stay here until I can get a statement," she said.

Voight looked at the man laying in the bed curled in a ball crying his eyes out, and asked her, "How long's he been like this?"

"Since I arrived," the patrolman answered.

"You really think he's going to be saying anything anytime soon?"

"Sergeant-"

"This guy's allowed in here," Voight pointed to Kelly, who made his way over to the bed and leaned over the rail and pulled Casey against him in a strong hug.

Voight continued to explain, "There're going to be some firefighters and EMS down here later who are going to want to see him, they can come in, but nobody else, you got that?"

"Yes sir," she responded meekly.

To his surprise, once she was gone, Casey actually _was_ able to form words, though not too many. In between sobs he choked out, "Kelly...do you know...do you know..." that was as far as he could get.

Kelly tightened his grip on his friend and said reassuringly, "We're going to find out what happened to Gabby, Casey, don't worry, whoever did this is going to pay for it."

Casey choked on his sobs and was unable to speak again.

"I'll be back later," Voight told Severide.

* * *

Right away Voight could see something was wrong. Casey's truck and Gabby's car were both parked at the curb, lights were still on in the apartment, the front door was open and a window was broken, the glass was shattered in the yard down below. He and Atwater proceeded with caution and made their way inside. For the most part it didn't look like a struggle had taken place. A couple of things in the living room were knocked over but that could just as easily have been from somebody running out in a hurry as someone busting in. They went room by room and finally cleared it, and satisfied nobody was still there, they searched for any medicine out in the open, or even not in the open.

"Just see regular stuff here," Atwater sorted through the medicine cabinet, "aspirin, sinus pills...birth control."

Voight entered the bathroom carrying two white bottles. "Got anti-nausea pills and allergy pills here...not sure off hand if these would interact or not. We'll haul it all in and let Maggie figure it out...hey, what happened here?"

"Huh?" Kevin turned around and saw Voight had stepped back out of the room and was looking at the wall. He went over to see what it was Voight was seeing and they saw that the wood had splintered from the door being kicked in.

"Who do you suppose did that?" Voight asked.

Atwater shrugged. "Front door wasn't broken in...the broken glass was outside, so whoever busted the window did it from in here."

"Gabby wouldn't let in anyone they didn't know...even if Casey was delirious with a fever I doubt he would either."

"So then they knew whoever it was," Kevin said.

"Unfortunately, neither of them can tell us who it was," Voight replied.

"Or what they were after."

"No...but maybe we can find out. Let's see if their phones are here."

The two cops went to the bedroom and found the covers thrown to the foot of the bed, one phone was on the nightstand, it was Casey's. It was the only phone they found.

"Gabby probably still had her phone on her," Kevin said.

"We'll get them to release her personal belongings from the morgue and have the techs dump it, if they _did_ know whoever was here, maybe they sent a text we can dig up and get something to work with."

Voight's phone buzzed again.

"Yeah?" he answered. Atwater noticed the sergeant's eyes widening slightly. "Okay." He disconnected the call and said, "They got something on the surveillance cameras. Let's get this dropped off at Med and head back to 21."

* * *

"What's going on?" Hank asked as he and Atwater entered the bullpen.

Halstead, Ruzek, and Burgess were all gathered around Ruzek's laptop and looked over at their sergeant.

"We ran the footage from the cameras," Halstead told him. "You need to see this."

Voight stepped behind them and looked at the screen.

"We got film from 8 cameras around that block, all different angles, we got them put together, and this is as much of the story as we can get answered here," Ruzek said as he reset the video.

The night vision footage showed the block where they'd found Casey and Gabby. It was empty aside from the parked cars. Suddenly there was movement coming from the alleyway between two buildings, it was Casey half running and half staggering as his feet made contact with all the litter and debris in the street, looking to be in an absolute panic. A few seconds later, Gabby came running through the same alley and seemed to be gaining on him. The footage switched to another angle and showed the two oncoming dealers who turned to fire back at the two Intelligence cops who were chasing them. Amidst the gunfire, there were a few flashes as Gabby got hit and she went down instantly, Casey had gotten half a block down before the shooting started and whether it was connected to the shooting or not, he fell on his knees, and he stayed there. He looked back, and when he saw Gabby he started screaming, and he stayed in that spot, not moving, until a couple minutes later when the footage showed Voight coming up to him.

The video ended and everybody stood around in silence, unsure what to make of what they'd just witnessed.

"Matt Casey was running _away_ from Gabby?" Voight asked. He looked around at the detectives and added, "Why?"


	2. Chapter 2

Voight returned to Chicago Med the next morning, looking like hell, feeling like hell, still doing everything he could to keep himself composed while he did his job. He noticed the parade of firefighters who were standing and sitting around the waiting room.

"Voight."

"Wallace, I'm very sorry about your loss," Hank said as he shook the battalion chief's hand.

"Tell me you got something."

"We're working on it, that's all I can tell you right now, we're waiting on ballistics, forensics..." Voight declined to add they were also waiting on an autopsy report. It was obvious from the looks on everyone's faces that none of them would be able to stand that piece of news.

"How's Matt doing?"

"Severide's the only one that's been in to see him so far," Wallace said. "Since he was there when it happened, we're giving him his time."

Voight nodded. "Understood. I need to talk to one of the nurses, I'll let you know when we have an update."

"Thank you."

Voight felt even more dead on his feet now than when he'd first walked in the door. Maggie was still there and she looked about like he felt.

"What's the news, Maggie?" he asked.

"Follow me," she said.

Voight followed the nurse down the corridor and they stopped just short of the room that Casey had been put in. Through the sliding glass door they saw Casey sitting up in the bed and Severide sitting beside the bed, both of them still with their arms locked around each other, Casey's head rested on Severide's shoulder and both of them looked like they'd finally worn themselves out and fallen asleep.

"How long they been like that?" Voight asked as they backed away so as to not wake up the two lieutenants.

"All night," Maggie answered. "The only time we were able to get Severide away from Casey was when he threw up. He's severely dehydrated, we got him on an IV and are pushing fluids. His blood sugar was just about rock bottom when we got his labs back."

Hank noted that Casey looked horrible. He'd already looked horrible last night in the dark when they got him loaded into the ambulance, if possible, he looked worse today, his skin actually looked gray and ashen, he was covered in perspiration, and he didn't miss the dark rings under Casey's eyes.

"Well guy's been throwing up all week with the flu, that's bound to happen, isn't it?" Voight asked.

Maggie shook her head. "That's not what it is."

He turned to the nurse, "What do you mean?"

"We got the tox report back," Maggie said, and held it out to him.

Voight took the papers and read over them. Halfway through he absently raised his free hand to his mouth, as if _he_ was the one going to be sick next.

"My God," he croaked out.

"I took the liberty of pulling a few of his hairs...hair averages an inch of growth per month and from that we can often determine how long somebody has been using drugs...his is a little longer than usual, so we were able to go further back...this has been going on for a while, Hank."

"How long?"

"We don't know, and I don't think Casey's going to volunteer that information."

Voight looked back at the report, trying to make some sense of it. "Where would he get this stuff anyway?"

"Here," Maggie said simply. "Or from the ambulance. I've been going through the records when the paramedics would restock the inventory...a lot of stuff went missing, more than the paperwork actually showed patients receiving."

"And nobody noticed?" Voight asked in disbelief.

"Presumably some of it got stolen when EMS responded to some of the shadier neighborhoods...not that it doesn't happen, but..."

"Uh huh..." Voight responded. He skimmed over the report again and asked Maggie, "What happens if you take all of these together?"

"Each on their own has a whole laundry list of potential side effects...mixing them is a good way to wind up comatose or dead, especially when mixed with alcohol, which the report shows he's had a steady amount of in his body this whole time."

"The guys in narcotics don't see some of this stuff commonly used on the streets...what effect would somebody be hoping to achieve with a cocktail like this?"

"I've actually never seen anyone with all this stuff in their system at one time," Maggie admitted. "I'm scared to guess."

"So now what?" Voight asked.

"We got him on a glucose IV but we haven't been able to get him to eat or drink anything, we tried earlier but he still can't keep anything down, we're keeping him heavily monitored to make sure there are no complications, the doctor didn't want to try putting him on naloxone yet incase it would also interact with everything he has in him. Right now there aren't high enough levels of anything to assume he's in an overdose range, a lot of these are down to trace amounts right now, if he's been steadily taking all this stuff for months without any incidents yet then we can only guess his body has built up some tolerance for them, so the best option we can see right now is have him wait it out and see what happens," the nurse told him.

Voight grunted. "Guy's got a rough recovery ahead of him."

"Especially on top of Gabby being murdered," Maggie said. "This is a nightmare, Hank."

"I know. How's Antonio doing?"

"Dr. Charles is supposed to speak with him later today, he's still sedated for the time being."

"That's something anyway," Voight said.

* * *

Voight entered Casey's hospital room, and he saw that Casey and Severide were awake, but Casey still wouldn't let go of Severide, and Kelly didn't seem in any hurry to let go of him.

"Kelly."

The Squad lieutenant turned his head and looked at the Intelligence sergeant. It was obvious that Kelly wanted to ask him something, but for his friend's sake, he didn't say what he was thinking.

"I need to get a statement from you about what you might've seen last night," Voight said calmly. "And the nurse needs to come in and check Casey's vitals. So if you could step outside while they do that..."

"No!" Casey tightened his grip on Severide and clung to him even harder and started crying again. "No, please..."

Kelly rubbed Matt's back and told him softly, "It's okay, Casey, I'll just be right outside, I'll be back in just a minute."

"No!" Casey tearfully begged him.

Voight could see his assistance might be needed to pry the two of them apart. He went over and held his hands out to give Casey a heads up what he was going to do, and told the blonde man, "Now just take it easy, Matt, the nurse isn't going to hurt you-"

Casey screamed as Voight grabbed him so Kelly could pull away, he tried to fight the sergeant but he was too weak from everything that had happened. Kelly got all but out of Casey's reach as Voight forced him back against the hospital bed, but he reached his hand over the railing and squeezed Casey's consolingly as he told his distraught friend, "I'll just be a minute, I promise." Reluctantly he left the room with Voight as a nurse came in to check on Casey.

The two men headed down the hall where they couldn't hear Casey screaming.

"Long night?" Voight took in Severide's exhausted appearance.

"He's still in shock...we all are," Kelly said as he scrunched his eyes shut as if they were burning from the lack of sleep. "I can't believe that Gabby's dead...how did this happen?"

"We're still waiting for ballistics, so far it looks like she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time...we're trying to find out why, did Matt tell you anything?"

"No, he can't, he's too upset, and too sick..." it was obvious that Severide was half out of his mind with grief and worry as he prattled on, "The nurse took his temperature earlier and said it's normal...but it can't be, he has to have a fever, he can't stop shaking, he's sweating like crazy. He's been home all last week with this flu, he should've gotten better before now."

"Casey doesn't have the flu, he's high," Voight told him simply and bluntly.

Kelly's eyes snapped wide open like he'd been slapped.

"_What_?"

"Actually by now his body's starting to go into withdrawal, _that's_ why he can't stop shaking or puking."

Kelly did a double take as he tried to make sense of what Voight was saying, but he couldn't.

"You're sick, Voight, how could you say that when you know what he's been put through?"

Voight took out the papers from his jacket and told Severide, "They did a tox screen on him, here's the official report. He's got a cocktail of sleeping pills, muscle relaxants, Ativan, Valium, ketamine, a whole pharmacy of big name high dollar prescription drugs...and to top it all off...insulin."

"What?" Kelly asked. "That...that doesn't make any sense."

"I know it...do you know _anything_ about this?" Voight asked.

"Hell no!" Kelly responded. "You're not saying that Casey's a junkie, he wouldn't do that."

"And he wouldn't jab himself with insulin either, he's not diabetic, right?" Voight asked.

"Of course not."

"He put up a fight when they took his clothes last night?" Hank asked.

"He put up a fight with everything they did," Kelly said.

"Maggie said they found injection marks in both thighs and his ass..."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Especially since the levels of the drugs aren't high enough for him to have been dosed in the last couple days...by which time those marks would already have disappeared..."

Nothing of what Voight was saying made any sense to Severide yet, but almost automatically he recalled, "Needle marks only stay when you repeatedly inject into the same spot instead of rotating."

Voight nodded. "Right...problem is, if Casey _was_ sticking himself, those are still areas where there's a chance somebody at 51 would've seen something...if he was shooting himself up with something, he's been around long enough he'd know places nobody will notice like between the toes. But he didn't."

"This still doesn't make any sense, what are you saying?" Kelly asked.

"He never tried to leave his room last night?" Voight asked. "Not for anything?"

Kelly slowly shook his head. "He was too upset to let go of me."

"He ask the nurse for any drugs?"

"Of course not!"

"The level of all those drugs in his system are low enough he will be feeling the effects of the withdrawal and his body's screaming he needs another fix and _that's_ why he's in as bad of shape as he is right now...I don't think Casey _knew_ he was on all that stuff," Voight said.

"That's impossible!" Kelly replied. "How could he not know-"

"If he did, he'd _know_ what's in store, and he'd be trying to get another fix somewhere, ask the nurse for something, wander off and break into the cabinet they keep the meds in, something," Voight pointed out. "How long has he been sick?"

Severide thought. "Like I said, he'd had the flu for a week..."

"But?" Voight looked at the Squad lieutenant knowingly.

"...He'd been feeling lousy for a few weeks. He looked bad, he said he wasn't getting enough sleep. We suggested he should go to the doctor just to make sure he wasn't coming down with something, he said he didn't need to...I...we all just thought he needed to take a couple shifts off and rest...you mean this whole time he..."

"According to the hairs they pulled for testing, he's been on this stuff for a couple months at least," Voight told the lieutenant.

Kelly couldn't accept it. "That's not possible...Casey would never do anything like that. He's not a junkie, he doesn't abuse pills, God, the guy barely takes aspirin for a migraine."

"You're not hearing me," Voight said calmly but firmly, "I don't think Casey took it himself."

"Then who..."

Kelly's eyes widened and Voight saw the punch coming before Severide even knew what he was going to do, Hank stepped out of the way and Kelly bashed his fist against the wall and stopped to groan in pain.

"Kelly...I'm not saying this to attack Gabby...I know you all were close, you were friends."

"We're...were, family," Severide responded as he turned back around clutching his sore hand in his good one.

"But there're some things you didn't know about her," Voight said.

Kelly grunted in pain and cynically remarked, "Oh yeah right, like what?"

"I _can_ show you," Voight calmly answered, "but you aren't going to want to see it."

"What're you talking about?" Kelly asked. "Show me what?"

Voight gestured back to Casey's room, "Can you leave him for a while?"

Kelly looked like he'd just been punched in the gut. It was obvious he did _not_ want to leave Casey. But he wanted to get to the bottom of everything.

"Okay," he reluctantly agreed, "let's go."

* * *

"I don't get it," Kelly said after he'd been shown the camera footage. "Why was Casey trying to get away from Gabby?"

"I have a couple ideas," Voight said as he had Ruzek bring something else up on the computer. "We had Gabby's phone dumped thinking it might explain who was at their apartment. But I'm starting to think nobody was. There was no forcible entry, Casey broke the window to get out and away from her."

"That's insane," Kelly told him.

"So's this," Voight pointed to the screen.

Kelly's eyes widened in disgust at the pictures that came up. Two dozen different shots of Casey's naked body in his bed, all of which he was asleep in. A few also featured Gabby in the picture laying beside Matt and smiling for the camera and definitely not decent while she did it.

"That's sick, what the hell are you doing with that? That's private, get rid of it," Kelly told them, not wanting to see another second of it.

"I told you you didn't want to know," Voight said simply.

"You are _sick_, Voight, you know that?" Kelly asked. "How can you pry into their personal lives like that?"

Voight kept his cool and calmly pointed out, "Did you notice that Casey wasn't awake in a single picture she took?"

Kelly wasn't getting what Hank was telling him.

"You think Casey _knew_ she took these, had them on her phone?" Voight asked. "We already dumped everything on Matt's phone, and there's definitely _nothing_ like that on his featuring Gabby."

Kelly didn't have any idea what to think. All he knew at that moment was he felt like his head was going to explode.

"I don't...what're you...what? None of this makes any sense."

"Yeah that's the conclusion we drew too," Atwater commented.

"It's possible that Gabby was doing something else that Casey found out about and that's why he ran from her last night," Voight explained.

"Something else-like what?" Kelly asked.

"The bathroom door of their apartment was kicked in, did you know that?" Hank asked the Squad lieutenant.

"No, when? Last night?"

"We don't know," Voight answered. "We couldn't figure out who had locked it, why they did, or who had broken it in...but we found something else on her phone."

Ruzek brought up a video file and Kelly watched as the handheld footage panned into the bathroom where the shower was running, steam rose over the curtain, and suddenly a hand reached out and snatched the curtain back.

_"GABBY!"_ Casey was momentarily blinded by the water pouring down his face but he knew who had exposed him and he was not amused.

A mischievous giggle responded. _"Smile, Mr. Alderman."_

_"Gabby, I'm not kidding, turn that off."_

_"Oh come on, Matt."_ The camera got in closer but still maintained a full view of him.

Casey was glaring at it and her. _"Will you get back?"_

_"No."_

_"Gabby, get out."_

_"Make me, mister big tough fireman."_

_"This isn't funny, Gabby."_

_"It is from where I'm standing."_

_"Gabby, please, get out."_

_"No."_

_"I don't have time for this, Gabby."_

Her voice was audible on the camera tauntingly, _"You always make time for me, Matt Casey."_

_"Not this time...I mean it, __out__."_

Ruzek clicked off the video and made an undecided sound as he explained, "My ex-fiancee used to send me naked pictures of her all day while I was working, she thought it was funny...until my phone got stolen that is. Gotta say..." he shook his head, "she never did anything like that...and that don't look like flirting to me. I mean it's pretty obvious he doesn't want her recording him."

"So maybe Casey started locking the door to keep his shutterbug wife out," Voight suggested.

Kelly looked at him with a confused expression. "And she broke the door in?"

"She _was_ a firefighter, wasn't she? She _knew_ how to do that," Voight pointed out.

"That's nuts," Kelly replied. "She wouldn't do that, she's not..."

"Before you finish that answer, would you like to see the apartment?" Voight asked. "Maybe you can pick up on something we missed, you were there regularly, right?"

Kelly shrugged, "Somewhat regularly."

"Okay, let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

"What happened here?" Kelly asked as he took in the state of disarray the apartment was in.

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me," Voight said as he shut the door behind them.

"What happened to the window?"

Hank let it slide that he'd already told Severide his theory for what had happened here. It was obvious everything was still too much of a shock for the bullheaded firefighter to take in at one time, if Gabby's murder alone hadn't been too much for him to deal with, this certainly pushed it clear off the edge.

"Somebody broke it to get out, but the door was standing open when we got here, so why do you think that is?" Voight asked.

"I...don't know," Kelly said.

"Take a look around, notice anything out of the ordinary?" Hank asked.

It was a slow search. They took it room by room and Severide looked over everything, but he didn't seem to have any better idea what they were looking for than Voight did.

"What _am_ I looking for?" he finally asked Voight.

"Well for one, where did the drugs come from? If he's been on all the stuff in that report, for as long as he has, they gotta be stored somewhere," Voight said. "You said he doesn't take drugs, and we didn't find anything but the normal stuff in the medicine cabinet. You got any idea where _anybody_ would be hiding that stuff around here?"

Kelly turned towards the sergeant and glared at him.

"Yeah, I know about you doping yourself after breaking your neck...where would _you_ hide that stuff?" Voight asked.

Severide continued to glare at him for a minute, before finally responding, "You know too much, you know that?"

"Why do you think they call us Intelligence?" Voight merely replied.

Kelly headed to the kitchen and asked Voight, "For being so smart, you only checked the medicine cabinet?"

"At the time we had no reason to suspect Casey was on any drugs except for the flu," Voight answered. "The docs say his seizures in the ambo were an interaction of those drugs plus whatever was in his system. And now we know _why_."

Kelly looked through the cabinets and didn't find anything, then went over to the fridge. Casey wasn't good at keeping the fridge stocked aside from beer and leftover pizza. There was a box of wine sitting on the top shelf, funny, he thought Gabby had more expensive tastes than that. He pushed it to the side to look behind it, and the box rattled.

"What the?"

"What is it?" Voight asked.

Kelly grabbed the box, it had something in it but was far lighter than a bag of wine. He pulled open the top flap and just stared at the contents.

"Severide, what is it?"

Kelly dumped the box open on the table, syringes and small vials spilled out and rolled across the tabletop. Voight picked one of the vials up.

"Insulin...you were saying?"

"It doesn't make sense," Kelly said. "What would Casey be doing with that?"

"What would _Gabby_ be doing with that?" Voight asked.

"You can't-"

"You saw the video, you saw the photos...you think this was beyond her abilities?" Voight asked.

It was obvious from the wide eyed look on Severide's face that he couldn't even begin to grasp what Voight was getting at.

"Severide, you're EMT certified...what happens if a non-diabetic takes insulin?"

Kelly blinked, and slowly rolled off what he knew. "It creates an overdose of insulin which eliminates the glucose in the body which drops the blood sugar levels...and...and..."

"And what symptoms would somebody experience with that?"

There was a pause, before Severide reluctantly counted off, "Shaking, sweating, dizziness, weakness, headaches, tremors."

"Sounds like the flu," Voight said.

"Oh God," Kelly moaned as he ran his hands over his face, "this can't be happening."

"And could also result in fainting, coma, and death, right?" Voight asked.

"This can't be happening," Kelly repeated, "it doesn't make sense, why would Ga-why would _anybody_ do that?"

All Voight said in response was, "For a firefighter with over 15 years on the job, you show a frightening lack of critical thinking. Come off it, Severide, you've seen stuff like this before."

Kelly shook his head. It didn't make sense, it couldn't be possible. Gabby and Casey were married, they were in love, what Voight was suggesting, didn't happen when two people loved each other. He was wrong, he had to be wrong...but the evidence of _something_ was staring up at him from the table. He knew Voight was right. Casey wasn't diabetic and neither was Gabby and if either of them were, _nobody_ would hide their insulin in a damn wine box.

"It can't be right," he said, more to himself than the sergeant. "Something has to be wrong here."

Voight could appreciate the difficulty of what Kelly was faced with here, but he knew their work wasn't over. He reached over and gripped the firefighter by his shoulder to force him to focus, "Where else?" The fact was they still had a whole pharmacy's worth of drugs to find and he knew they must be close by.

Kelly forced himself to pull himself back together and resumed his search. On top of the fridge were a set of old metal canisters for storing flour, sugar, coffee, etc., it seemed too obvious but he knew nobody had any reason to use them. He grabbed the biggest one on the end and heard something rattle in it.

"Oh God."

Voight looked and saw several bottles of pills stashed in it.

"What...why would...what possible reason would Gabby..." Kelly couldn't even bring himself to finish that thought. "It can't be right, we all had a drug test last month, everybody passed."

"Uh huh," Voight replied, "And they had one back in 2012 when you were self medicating, and you passed, right?"

Kelly's eyes widened. "You think Gabby..."

"If she's not taking this stuff herself, she could pass the test for both of them," Voight pointed out.

"But why?" Kelly asked helplessly. "Why would she do it?"

"Casey didn't want her filming him in the shower...you think he would've approved of her taking his picture in bed if he'd been awake?" Hank asked him.

"It still doesn't make sense, what's it all mean?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know," Voight admitted as he shook his head. "Hopefully we can find the answer here, and won't have to ask Casey about it."

"But you said..."

"You would _know_ if somebody jabbed a needle in your ass," Voight said plainly, "maybe he was willing to go along with that, for whatever reason...but you think he'd agree to be a guinea pig to this extent for whatever Gabby had planned? Man loves his job, he would have to know he was a time bomb with two dozen drugs in his system, I don't think he'd really risk that if he knew."

"But why would he agree to any of it?" Kelly asked.

"Man loved his wife," Voight pointed out. "Me, he had no problem saying go to hell to, but Gabby? I don't see it. I think he was for the most part willing to go along with whatever she said, if for no other reason than to keep the peace. You _do_ that in a marriage, _you_ wouldn't know anything about that."

Kelly glared at him, but let it go. "It still doesn't make any sense. This is not Gabby."

"Not the Gabby _you_ knew...I told you there were things about her you didn't know," Voight reminded him. "And this could just be the tip of the iceberg."

"Why would Gabby jeopardize him, and everybody else on the job like that?" Kelly asked.

"My guess, she probably dosed him the first day after each shift, then he had 24 hours to come down off what she gave him and act normal again before the next shift."

"But she had to know that it was still putting him and everyone else at risk," Kelly said.

"She _knew_ he could die from a reaction to any _one_ of the drugs that were in his system, _all_ of them together...if she wasn't actively _trying_ to kill him, it's anybody's guess what she _was_ doing," Voight told him.

Kelly shook his head. "It just can't be right...Gabby wouldn't..."

"Look, Kelly, I'm a cop and I've seen stuff like this before, not usually to this extent, but I _have_ seen it," Voight said. "Probably more than you have. Most of the time, it was somebody in the family who everybody swore could never do such a thing. Wives with their husbands, mothers with their kids, it's not unheard of."

"But why?" Kelly asked. "Why would she do it? What did she gain by it?"

"I can guess...how long were those two together? Three years? And all of a sudden she just starts doping him?" Voight shook his head. "Doesn't add up."

"That's what I've been telling you!" Kelly replied, clearly frustrated by everything that was going on.

"Was Gabby ever on any medications you know of? After the baby she lost, anything like that?" Voight asked.

"I don't know, why?"

"Because maybe she started drugging Casey early on into the relationship, and he just didn't know it," Voight said, and before Kelly could refute that idea, he added, "if he seemed just slightly off his game, that could've been attributed to his skull fracture, right? Nobody would ask too many questions about that."

"But _why_?" Kelly asked again, not sure anymore which end was even up.

"I'm not sure," Voight answered, "seems like something's missing."

"Like what?"

"Come on, I want you to see the bathroom for yourself."

Severide followed Voight across the apartment and he took in the splintered doorframe and spent a couple minutes examining it.

"Well?" Voight asked.

"This still doesn't make any sense," Kelly shook his head. "Casey didn't want Gabby filming him, so he locked the door to keep her out, and she kicked it in? _Why_?"

"We didn't find any drugs in here, or the bedroom," Voight told him. "All the same it's probably worth another look."

The two men headed to the bedroom and Severide looked through the drawers to the dresser and the nightstand, this time he didn't turn up anything.

"The drugs in the kitchen must be all there are," he said.

"That's already enough to kill a small army," Voight pointed out.

Kelly straightened his spine and looked in the mirror on top of the dresser, and he noticed something.

"Hey," he said as he reached behind the mirror and pulled out a smartphone.

"I thought you said you had both their phones," Kelly said.

"We do," Voight answered as he stepped over to the dresser.

Kelly looked at the phone in his hand and asked, "Then whose is this?"

"Let me see it," Voight took it from him. "Looks like Gabby had two phones."

"What for?"

Voight searched through it and his eyebrows raised, "Uh oh, looks like another video."

"Now what?" Kelly asked as he looked over Voight's shoulder.

Voight played the video, and the same shaky handheld view panned around to very familiar yellow tiling.

"That's the shower at 51," Kelly said.

He and Voight watched in silence as the camera zoomed in on one stall in particular that was currently in use. Gabby's hand reached out and yanked the curtain back, and Casey jerked around to see what was going on.

_"Gabby! What're you doing here?"_

_"It's a coed locker room, I can be here if I want to be."_

_"You can't be in here, someone could come in."_

_"Then move over and close the curtain."_

_"No."_

_"Oh come on, Matt, you never want to do anything fun anymore."_

_"Gabby, __get out__, and turn that off!"_

_"No."_

Casey's eyes widened. _"What?"_

_"I said no."_ Gabby's voice had shifted from lighthearted and teasing to firm and hard. _"I can do whatever I want, you are_ _mine_, _you don't say no to me, Matt Casey, you __will__ regret it."_

_"Gabby, I don't have time for this."_

_"You will-"_

_"Those bells can go off any second and you know that, now get out before somebody comes in."_

Kelly's head felt like it was spinning. Even seeing it with his own eyes he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge what he was seeing.

"I don't get it," he told Voight, "obviously she didn't get what she came for, so why keep the video?"

Voight closed it and told Severide, "There's a _lot_ of videos on here."

"What?" Kelly looked at the screen. "Are they _all_ like that?"

"I don't know," Voight said as he shook his head.

"What's this one?" Kelly pressed the screen and started the next one.

The picture was darker in this video and it took a few seconds for Severide to realize this one was filmed right there in the bedroom. He could just barely make out Casey laying in the bed, seemingly asleep, and heard Gabby's voice before she actually came into the shot.

_"Matt. Ma-a-a-tt."_

_"What?"_ Casey tiredly grumbled.

_"You know what I want."_

Casey grunted something and turned over, facing away from her and the camera.

_"Matt,"_ she said again, more firmly this time.

_"No, Gabby."_

_"What do you mean no?"_

_"I don't want to, I'm tired, I want to get some sleep,"_ Casey answered as he rolled back over to face her.

There was silence on the screen for a few seconds, a shadow covered Casey and it was hard to see much of anything, but the explosive sound of the slap was unmistakable, as was Casey's groan of pain.

_"You don't ever say no to me, Matt Casey, you are mine, you got that?"_

Casey's hands were covering his face, only half muffling the groan that was escaping him.

_"Do you understand_ me?" Gabby's voice demanded to know.

_"Ohhhh...yes,"_ Casey reluctantly conceded.

There was a pause, then Gabby's voice dropped and became more ominous.

_"If you don't want everyone to know, you'll do what I say, are we clear?"_

The defeat in Matt's voice was clearly audible as he hesitantly responded, _"Yes."_

_"Yes what?"_

_"Yes...Gabby."_

_"Good. Now turn over."_

_"Gabby..."_

_"Turn...__over__,"_ her voice responded slowly and threateningly.

Casey sighed as he obeyed her. Gabby came into view now as she pulled down the covers, and Voight and Severide just barely saw the syringe as she stuck him with it. A stifled moan escaped Casey.

Gabby exhaled satisfactorily and said, _"Just give that a few minutes to work and we'll be ready."_

_"Gabby,"_ Casey turned back over and asked her, _"Why are you doing this?"_ He sounded near tears as he asked her, _"Why are you doing this to me? I love you."_

Gabby's voice took on a tone that turned Kelly's spine to ice as she responded_, "I know, and you're going to prove how much you do."_

The picture was too dark to make out much aside from outlines and a few movements, but after a couple minutes the only sounds on the video were the pained, reluctant moans from Casey that bordered on screaming, and the louder, more consenting and obscene noises Gabby was making. Kelly turned and ran out of the bedroom and just made it to the bathroom as he started to violently throw up.

* * *

Kelly didn't have any idea how much time had passed. He didn't know when he'd finally stopped throwing up. When he finally had, he didn't have the strength to get back on his feet and he just sat with his knees bent and his back leaned against the cabinet under the sink. He was aware of the tears that continued to run down his face but he felt all but physically numbed to them by now, he couldn't even remember when he'd started crying, or why exactly. The world as he'd known it ceased to exist, nothing made sense anymore. He balled one hand up and ran the knuckles across his cheek and streaked the tears away, it didn't seem to matter, a few minutes later there was a fresh batch to replace them.

Finally Kelly decided he couldn't hide out there anymore and reluctantly got to his feet and opened the door.

Voight was waiting for him outside.

"You alright?" he asked. Kelly was surprised by what seemed to be genuine concern.

Kelly absently raised a hand to his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut as he worked his way up to explaining, "A few weeks back, Casey started showing up on shift...and I could tell he hadn't showered. He always had an excuse, the water heater was broken, he didn't have time...I didn't pay much attention to it. Then I started noticing...the only time he'd go to the locker room to shower or change, was when Ambo was out on a call...we'd come back from calls, he'd be caked in soot and ash, soaking wet, stinking to high heaven, but he always had an excuse something he had to get done first. I wondered, but I never asked, I decided it was none of my business...figured whatever he was going through, he'd deal with. I didn't know...I had no idea..."

"Kelly, he didn't _want_ you to know, you or anyone else," Voight told him.

And that was the only thing that could hurt him worse than what he'd just witnessed.

"Why didn't he tell me?" Kelly asked helplessly. "Why didn't he tell me what was going on?"

"Kelly, he couldn't tell _anyone_ about this," Voight pointed out.

Kelly's head was swimming and his knees felt like jelly, he just about hit the floor when Voight caught him.

"Easy," he said as he eased the Squad lieutenant onto the carpet. "Easy."

"You...did you know?" Kelly asked, just about on the verge of hysterics.

"I suspected _something_ was up," Voight told him. "I understand shock, but I also know how you guys work. I was on the scene right after Gabby was shot, and I couldn't figure out why Casey wouldn't go near her, wouldn't even _try_ to resuscitate her...he must've been so scared that she was still alive, and so relieved when he found out she was dead."

"Oh God," Kelly groaned as he felt his eyes burning. "This is a nightmare."

"I know."

"What now?" Kelly asked as he felt tears streaming down his face again, "Everybody thinks that Gabby...that they were...nobody knows, everybody's waiting to...everybody's going to be sending sympathy cards, flowers, God, how cruel can it be?"

Voight shook his head, "Kelly, you can't tell them about this, it's not your place to do that."

"Casey's not going to tell them, they have to know..."

Voight shook his head again. "Casey didn't want them to know, and only he can decide when and if they _do_ find out. Obviously Gabby was blackmailing him with something, and what we have to do is find out what it was."

Kelly looked at the Intelligence sergeant with wide eyes void of any hope and asked, "What could she possibly blackmail him with?"

"You let me figure that out," Voight told him as he grabbed Kelly under the armpits and pulled him to his feet. "What you've got to do is be there for your friend now, he needs somebody and you're the only one he can trust."

"How do I tell him that I know about this?" Kelly asked.

"I don't think you'll have to."

"What?" Kelly thought back to last night, "Oh my God."

_In between sobs he choked out, "Kelly...do you know...do you know..." that was as far as he could get._

Kelly thought Matt had been asking about who killed Gabby. Now he realized what Casey was really trying to ask, but was still too scared to find out the truth.

"That's why he didn't want me to leave him this morning," Kelly realized. "Because I didn't know, and he was worried I'd find out."

"I'm sure you can appreciate how hard it is for him right now," Voight said. "If you want to be there for him you have to realize what we're working with. You can't push him to talk about anything that's happened, he's still got enough drugs in his system his head isn't in the right place yet, we'll have to wait until he's good and sober to question him about anything and even then there's a good chance he won't tell us anything. You want to help him, you're going to have to let him come to you, and you're going to have to have more patience with him than you ever did before. His wife's been drugging him, raped him, she's dead and everyone around him still thinks she was a good person, and again, there's a good chance he doesn't realize the extent of what she did to him. Only time will tell how much he really knows, and whether he does or not, he's going to have to decide to tell you about it, and if he doesn't, you have to accept that and leave it be. Got it?"

Kelly slowly nodded.

"Okay," Voight said, "You need to make sure 51 stays in the dark on this one, I'm going to call in my crew and we're going to bag all the drugs, and have our tech guys go through her phone and see what all they find. We need to know what Casey was dealing with."

"But what good will that do? Gabby's dead."

"We have to find out what she was blackmailing him about, depending on what it was, we could still be looking at an open investigation with other perps involved. Gabby got her hands on a lot of drugs that shouldn't have been able to leave the ambulance or the hospital without somebody paying better attention, maybe she was getting them off the street or from another ambulance company, if so we have to find out who she was working with. In any case, Matt Casey is going to need professional help to get past this, and the doctor is going to have to know everything he can about the case, even the stuff Casey won't or can't fill him in on," Voight explained.

Kelly hated to admit it but he knew the sergeant had a point.

"I need to...I need to..." Kelly stepped away and looked around the room, "I need to get him a change of clothes to take back to the hospital..."

"Kelly..."

"Yeah, I know, I won't blow it," Kelly sniped.

"I was going to say you might look into talking to somebody too," Voight told him. "Gabby betrayed everyone, this isn't something even you can just walk away from."

"I'm..." Kelly let that lie die on his lips, he couldn't even pretend he was fine. "I have to get back and see how Casey's doing."


	4. Chapter 4

Voight and Severide returned to the hospital and saw most of the crew from 51 was gone. One by one they'd all been in to see Casey and he had been too upset to speak to any of them, and everybody decided to go home and let him rest. That made what was coming next slightly easier for Severide to prep himself for. He and Voight walked down the corridor to Casey's room, and before they reached the door they could hear his quiet sobs out in the hall. They entered the room and saw the blonde lieutenant sitting up in the bed with his head dropped to his chest. He looked up in response to the sudden presence in the room, and saw the two men, and his eyes welled up with fresh tears and his whole body started trembling in horror as he tried to choke back the sobs against his closed lips. He knew. He knew that they knew, and he feared the worst.

Severide marched over to the bed and wrapped his arms around Casey and pulled the blonde man against him in a tight hug and started crying himself as he rested his chin on the crown of Matt's head and told him, his own voice already broken with sobs, "It's okay, it's okay, everything's going to be alright, Matt."

Casey shook against him and barely managed to choke out a horrified, "You know...you know..."

"I know you didn't do anything wrong," Kelly told him. "I'm sorry, Casey, I'm so sorry, I had no idea what was going on."

Casey kept his arms stiff at his sides, as if he were afraid to reach out to Severide, as if that might cross a line and he would find Kelly's support suddenly withdrawn from him.

"I didn't...I didn't want anyone to know," Casey told him.

"I know, I know," Kelly said softly as he pressed his head between Casey's neck and shoulder. "Nobody else knows, nobody has to know."

Voight stood back and watched the scene as it unfolded. As a cop for over 30 years he'd seen more than his share of horrible things that nobody should ever have to witness, let alone live through. He would never admit it to anyone else, but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't feel like his heart was breaking watching the two lieutenants and knowing what had led up to this moment. He liked Casey, he genuinely liked the man and what he stood for, too honest to compromise his convictions, even when it put his life on the line, Voight could respect that. And he'd liked Gabby too. He'd been devastated when he found her body and discovered she was already dead. Then, he'd tasted the acid in the back of his throat when he and Severide watched the video on her phone. He understood very well the betrayal that was coursing through Severide right now, he'd had his suspicions that something was up when he realized how off Casey's behavior was the other night, but until Maggie showed him Casey's tox screen, he never would've imagined it could be anything this bad. And he knew Maggie was still too much in shock herself to see it for what it was, she thought Matt had taken the drugs himself, thought that he had done this to himself. When Voight saw the report, his brain was already wiring all the pieces together, there were a few reasons why somebody would drug a loved one, but the list got even shorter when it was to the extent Casey had been put through. And he had his sickened suspicions when the techs dumped Gabby's phone, they'd find a lot more videos like the one they'd just seen, and, much as he hated to even think it, probably some of them would be even worse than what they already saw.

He watched the two firefighters as they held onto each other and cried, both of them far beyond any coherent words now. As much as he felt he was intruding on them, Voight knew Kelly was going to need help to get Casey through what came next, and he couldn't trust anyone from Firehouse 51 right now.

Voight went over beside Kelly and put a hand on his shoulder.

"If you want to stay with him that's fine, but you can't be here 24 hours a day, Severide."

Kelly found his voice long enough to snipe at the sergeant, "Watch me."

"It's no good, Kelly, somebody else will have to stay with him. You talk to your chief and do whatever you have to do to get the time off to be here...you stay with him in the day, I'll come over and watch him when I clock out of the 21st."

Kelly shook his head.

"Kelly. I know what I'm talking about."

Kelly sighed defeatedly and turned to Casey and asked him, "Matt?"

Casey's only response was to tighten his hold on Severide.

"I'll stay with him," Kelly told Hank.

"You're going to need help," Voight pointed out. "You remember what withdrawal was like, it's going to be worse for him."

Kelly knew Voight was right, but he hated to admit it and he didn't like the idea of leaving Casey alone. He felt like he'd failed his best friend by not catching on to what was happening with him. He didn't want Casey to think he was abandoning him now.

* * *

It hadn't been easy but Voight had finally convinced Severide to go home for the night and get some rest. He would stay with Casey until Kelly returned in the morning. And it was going to be a long night. Voight found himself crammed in the hospital bed with his arms locked around Casey as the younger man sweated and shook and sobbed as his body was fully feeling the effects of withdrawal from the laundry list of drugs he'd been on for months.

"I know, I know," Voight calmly told the lieutenant who struggled in his hold. "You'll be alright, Casey, I know this is hard, I had to get Erin through a few nights like this when she was a teenager. You've met Erin, right? Severide's old girlfriend who works at the 21st." He took the labored sob that choked up from Casey's throat as an answer. "She's had her fair share of drying out, never easy, but she got through it, you will too."

Of course Voight had to remember this was not a normal situation by any means. Junkies and users knew withdrawal when they felt it and they knew what it was they needed a fix of to feel better. He was still convinced that Casey didn't have any idea what all drugs Gabby had him on, in which case his body was going through withdrawal for things he didn't even know what they were, so his brain had no way of knowing _what_ he needed to feel better. Now _that_ would be a special kind of hell all its own, like a baby born already addicted to heroin.

Casey went into a series of spasms and thrashed against Voight, a hiccuping sob working its way out of his body.

"I know, Casey, I know, I know what you were scared of us finding out...we know that what happened to you wasn't your fault, you don't need to worry about that. And nobody is going to tell anyone the truth unless you decide they need to know. You have my word."

Casey went limp in his arms and sagged his head against Voight's shoulder and continued bawling.

"It'll be alright, Casey, we'll help you get through this," Voight assured him. "I know it feels impossible right now but you just have to be patient. Breathe, breathe, slowly..."

Casey sucked in a few small breaths that came right back out as fresh sobs, but he kept trying and gradually kept the air in him longer with each try.

"Good, that's better, just keep breathing," Hank told him.

It was several hours before Casey finally calmed down and his body sagged against Voight's and he got quiet. Hank had no delusions that Casey would rest for very long, but he'd take whatever they could get.

In the dark hospital room, with no one to see them, Voight looked at the younger man asleep in his arms, and he slowly leaned over and kissed Casey on the top of his head.

"You'll be alright, kid. It's just going to take time."

* * *

Voight lost almost all the feeling in his legs when he climbed out of the hospital bed early the next morning. Casey actually seemed to have slept for a couple hours, but almost immediately once he sensed the lack of another person in the bed, he stirred, and moaned, and then threw up on himself. An orderly came in to change the sheets and a nurse tried to assist Casey into the bathroom so he could shower and clean up, but he refused and almost got violent with her. Voight suggested she might have better luck giving him a sponge bath, and he had to volunteer his own brute strength to keep Casey pinned down to the bed so the nurse could work. Casey screamed and kicked and struggled as his clothes were removed, and Voight had a good idea why that was, but he knew they had to get him cleaned up, so he kept Casey pressed flat against the mattress while the nurse worked. He screamed even louder as he felt the water and soap and sponge against his skin and futilely squirmed under Voight's hold, then gradually gave way to a series of whines and moans that suggested he was in pain. By the time they got him in a fresh gown and settled back under the sheet, Casey was crying like a child who'd just been beaten. He turned his back to Voight and shoved his head under the pillows.

And that was the moment when Severide walked in.

"What the hell happened?" he wanted to know.

"Didn't take well to a sponge bath," Voight answered simply.

Kelly muttered something under his breath and went over to the side of the bed and tried to get Casey to look at him.

"Casey it's me, are you alright? What happened?"

Casey's only response was a pained groan as he burrowed further under the covers.

"You sure you're up to this?" Voight asked Kelly.

Severide turned to Voight and glared at him. "Fine."

"Suit yourself. You need help, give me a call."

Kelly almost said "I won't" but he decided he couldn't afford to bite the only hand that _could_ help him if need be. He hated that he couldn't bring the guys from 51 in on this but he knew none of them would understand what was going on, and as bad of shape as Casey was already in right now, Kelly wasn't sure he could survive everybody finding out what happened to him.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Voight motioned towards the door.

Kelly patted Casey on the arm and told him, "I'll be right back, buddy," and followed Voight out.

They headed down the corridor so Casey wouldn't hear them and Voight told Kelly, "I got a message last night, ballistics matched the slugs they pulled out of Gabby to the guns the dealers we busted that night were firing at Atwater and Ruzek, for whatever that's worth."

Kelly slowly nodded as he took that in. "I'll tell the others later. _They'll_ probably be somewhat relieved."

"And how're you holding up?" Voight asked.

"Worried," Kelly answered honestly, a rarity for him. "What happens now? I mean Casey can't...he's in no condition to...what're they going to do with..."

"The medical examiner can keep Gabby on ice until Casey's up to making the funeral arrangements," Voight said.

Kelly helplessly raked his fingers through his hair. "God...how's he going to do that? How can he be expected to plan a funeral for the woman who...did that to him?"

"When he's up to talking about it we could see if he'd rather Antonio take care of it," Voight said.

"Does Antonio know?"

"No...I have to bring the rest of my team in on this, but I honestly don't know what I'm going to do about Antonio, he has no idea what his sister did," Hank answered.

Up the hall they heard a commotion and somebody screaming and the two men took off running for Casey's room, where they found him out of bed and trying to kill the the people who had come in. Kelly made his way past them and tackled Casey and the two of them fell to the floor. Casey struggled against him and was still screaming incoherently, then suddenly two decipherable words came out, "No more...no more..." his body sagged against the floor under Kelly's weight and he started sobbing, "No more, please, no more..."

"What's going on?" Voight asked the doctor.

"I explained to Mr. Casey we were going to start him on some medication to help get him through detox and-"

"No!" Casey screamed as he pressed his face against the floor, "No more drugs, please, God, no more drugs."

"Sounds like he doesn't want it," Voight said simply.

"He would be placed on non-addictive painkillers, antidepressants and sleeping pills to cope with the symptoms of withdrawal. Without that he's putting himself in unnecessary danger."

"I'm a cop, I know how drugs work, and how withdrawal works," Voight said.

"Then you know how quickly somebody drying out cold turkey could go into organ failure," the doctor told him.

"And I know you people are trained to watch for stuff like that. How are his vitals currently?"

"Fair considering."

"Then when they start to get un-fair, _then_ put him on the drugs, until then, let him do this," Voight responded.

The doctor did a double take. "What he already did to himself you really think that he has any idea what-"

"He didn't do this to himself, his _wife_ did it to him, and she's dead," Voight told him. "Alright? Now he's the patient, so you're going to respect the patient's wishes."

Voight looked over and saw Severide had managed to scrape Casey off the floor and gotten himself in a sitting position on the floor with Casey leaning back against him as he deliriously continued to murmur, "No more drugs...no more drugs..."

The Intelligence sergeant went over to the two men and crouched down in front of Casey, who visibly braced himself at the cop's sudden presence.

"It's alright, Matt," Voight told him softly. "You don't want any drugs, they're not going to put you on any drugs." He helped Kelly get Casey to his feet so Severide could get up as well, and they managed to get him back into the bed.

Casey looked up to the ceiling with eyes wide open but didn't appear to actually see anything as he kept repeating in between heavy breaths, "No more...no more..."

"You sure you got this?" Voight asked Kelly.

He'd already said he could. Though he was starting to have his own doubts about it, he couldn't back out now.

"I'm staying."

* * *

Voight looked around at the sickened faces of everybody working under him in Intelligence. The techs had finished uncovering everything on Gabby's phone and turned up over a hundred video files, all featuring varying degrees of perversion involving Gabby Dawson, and varying levels of impairment, coercion and reluctant consent from Matt Casey. All his detectives had just viewed _one_ of the videos found.

"So let's get one thing straight right off," Voight told them. "To make sure everybody's on the same page and there's no confusion, what you just witnessed, was rape. No, Gabby Dawson did not put a gun to Matt Casey's head, she didn't put a knife to his throat, but she drugged him, and raped him, and we know that prior to her drugging him she was able to coerce him into letting her do what she did, because she was holding something over his head to blackmail him with, something he didn't want the people he works with to find out, and apparently would do anything to avoid. The video's clear, he said no, she didn't listen, that's the definition of rape. The drugs he had in his system would have left him impaired at best, in others, completely unconscious, others, partially aware but unable to move and fight her off, thereby taking away his ability to consent. _That_ is the definition of rape. Putting him on those drugs in the first place, especially ones for conditions he did not have, put him at a very real risk of going into a coma, or dying. That's reckless endangerment and attempted murder. Any preconceived ideas you may have had before about female on male rape, or any predispositions you had about Gabby Dawson being exempt from any guilt because you know her, or because her brother is part of this unit, that's all gone out the window. Fact, Gabby Dawson drugged her husband for months to rape him and then make videos of it, fact, she had something up her sleeve to blackmail him with into complying with her demands. Fact, as many drugs as she had him on, she had to be getting them somewhere other than just swiping inventory out of 51's ambulance. So talk to your CIs, see if anybody's getting anything from EMS looking to turn a quick buck, if there are other people involved, let's find out who and where they are."

"Um, sarge?" Ruzek asked. "What happens when Antonio gets out of Med? I mean what do we tell him?"

The bullpen was still enough that a pin could be heard dropping as everybody waited to find out the same thing.

All Voight said was, "When Antonio comes back to work, send him to my office, I'll handle it."


	5. Chapter 5

The days passed slowly and hellishly at Chicago Med. In between Casey's episodes of shaking and sweating and screaming and vomiting and dry heaving and and crying and stomach cramps and hallucinations and occasionally having to be restrained much to his immense displeasure, he wouldn't talk, he hardly ate, Kelly had to coax him just to drink water so he wouldn't get dehydrated, all he did was curl into a fetal ball facing away from the door and cry. Every so often, a delivery was brought to the room, flowers, balloons, Kelly sent away the ones that specifically mentioned sympathy or condolences, the rest he kept but tore up the cards and just told Casey they were a get-well gift from the guys at 51 and their families. To keep suspicion from arousing, he called Boden and had him relay the message to everyone else that Casey was in worse shape now than when Hallie died and was so grief stricken he could barely eat and was hardly sleeping, and especially with the flu he had, his condition had gotten worse and doctors wanted to extend his stay to keep an eye on him and make sure there were no sudden complications. It had been hard for them to hear but they understood, and it had been hard as hell for Severide to lie and pretend that Casey was in the shape he was because he was mourning Gabby, but he knew he had to.

Voight came in the evenings to relieve him of his watch, and though Kelly hated to leave Matt, he knew he wouldn't get any rest staying there watching him all night. Not that he got much rest at home in his apartment either because all he thought about all night was Casey, but he was able to get some sleep knowing that Casey wasn't alone, and though their working relationship with Voight left something to be desired, at least he knew Hank would call him immediately if there was any update in Casey's condition. He knew when, _when_, God, he hoped it _was_ when and not _if_, when Casey could finally be released from the hospital, there was no way he could go back home. Before he finally went to bed he spent a couple hours each night going around the apartment trying to get it ready, make sure he had everything Casey would need, he'd gone to the apartment and gotten some of his stuff already and brought it there. He really didn't think Casey would _want_ to turn down the offer to stay with him, he didn't think Casey _could_ turn him down considering the alternative. All he could think about was getting Matt out of the hospital and bringing him home with him, where he could keep an eye on him and _know_ he was alright.

* * *

As much as Casey wanted to die, both from what Gabby had done to him, and subsequently Kelly finding out about it, and from the physical hell of detoxing, he felt that after a point the days started to get a little easier. Maybe he was just hallucinating again and didn't know it. But it seemed he was sleeping a little more now both in the day and night than he used to. He didn't know what was going on, but Voight stayed with him at night, then Kelly came and stayed with him in the daytime, that was the only way he could really tell what part of the day it was. He didn't know time, he didn't know daylight, every time he opened his eyes, everything looked the same. He wasn't really sure what to make of Voight staying in the bed with him every night, though he knew there was a reason for it. One time, shortly before Kelly came to the hospital, Casey went into a violent fit of vomiting and threw up on himself _and_ Voight. He'd been subjected to another sponge bath, and after that Voight brought a change of clothes each night. He wasn't sure if he was just seeing things or not, but when Kelly came to the hospital and found out what happened, he would've sworn he could see a smile on the Squad lieutenant's face at the thought of Casey throwing up on Voight.

He had no concept of what day it was, or how long he'd been in the hospital. One time he opened his eyes and Severide was asleep in the chair beside the bed. He opened his eyes again, and this time Kelly was in the bed beside him asleep. Ever since Kelly had returned to Med with Voight, Casey felt a paralyzing fear of being on eggshells, and just waiting for the bottom to drop out. Kelly had been there every day, and been nothing but supportive, but Casey just knew that it wouldn't last. He took the comfort that was offered, but he was terrified to reach out for more, feeling positive that that would be where the line was crossed and Severide pushed him away, and right now he couldn't take it if that happened. Even now with Severide asleep beside him, he was too scared to hardly move, incase Kelly woke up, incase...but he didn't have anyone else, and he knew it. Careful not to even breathe too loudly, he very slowly turned closer towards Kelly and very carefully reached out and grabbed hold of him, and leaned into him and closed his eyes, and tried to go back to sleep.

What Casey didn't know was that Severide hadn't been asleep, and once he felt Casey settle against him, he opened one eye and watched the blonde lieutenant, and listened to his breathing until it became steady and rhythmic and he was sure Matt was asleep.

Kelly didn't know what it was that still scared Casey so much, but he never pushed, he knew the whole situation was difficult enough for Matt as it was, he wasn't going to make his best friend anymore uncomfortable than he already had to be. He wrapped his arm around the sleeping man and held him closer against him and closed his eyes and waited to fall asleep himself.

* * *

"Do you know what you were on?"

Kelly finally decided it was time to lightly probe Casey to at least get a discussion started. He knew Casey wouldn't like it, but he thought it had been long enough that he could ask.

The look on Casey's face said otherwise.

Kelly sat up straighter in the chair by the bed and told him, "I'm not trying to embarrass you, and I'm not going to ask you about what happened...but do you even know why this is happening to you? Do you know what all you were on?"

Casey looked down at the blanket covering his legs and wouldn't face him.

"If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to," Kelly told him. "But if you want to talk about it, you can."

Casey was silent for a minute, before he finally raised his head and answered hesitantly, "Valium...sleeping pills...ketamine...and insulin." He looked down again and couldn't bring himself to look at Severide.

Kelly had no idea what to say in response to that, he hadn't actually thought Casey would tell him. He reached over and pulled Casey into a tight hug and told him, "It's alright, it's over, it'll _be_ over soon, you just have to hang in there, you're doing well."

He felt the sobs before he actually heard them, Casey's whole body trembled against him. He knew this wasn't another withdrawal episode, this was the shame Matt had been carrying around ever since the whole thing started. It was one thing merely _knowing_ that Severide _knew_ what had happened, it had been another to actually admit to what had been going on, what he'd _allowed_ her to do to him, to admit that he _knew_ what she was doing and to some extent had actually played a role in her plan.

"It's okay, it's okay, Matt," Severide tried to assure his friend. "I know you didn't want to do it."

A hiccuping spasm wracked through Casey's body as he tried to form the words to ask Kelly, "Wh-would you ha-hate me if-fi-I did?"

"I know you didn't," Kelly answered simply. "Matt, I _know_ you."

Or he thought he did anyway. How could he know his friend so well and be so oblivious to what was going on? But he knew it wouldn't do any good to bring that up.

* * *

Voight was on his way to Casey's room for the night when he heard something amidst the typical sounds of a busy hospital, and he stopped, and traced the sound to an empty exam room. He pulled back the privacy curtain and found Severide sitting on the floor with his knees bent and tears streaked down his cheeks.

"Something happen with Casey?" Hank asked.

"The doctor was saying..." Kelly leaned forward and stood up, "all the drugs that he was on...even once everything's finally out of his system...there could be permanent brain damage."

Voight's eyes widened, "Don't tell me he said that in front of Matt."

Kelly shook his head, "No, he told me out in the hall."

"I know this is a lot for you to deal with, Severide, but we can only take it one step at a time, first Casey has to _get_ detoxed for us to find out where he's at, and in the meantime it won't do any good to worry about something that might not have happened."

"I asked him," Kelly told the sergeant, "I asked Casey if he knew what Gabby drugged him with-"

"Why would you do that?"

"He doesn't know what all she did to him," Kelly told him. "He admitted to a few things...he has no idea how bad it was."

"Or he was too embarrassed to admit everything," Voight replied.

"No," Kelly said firmly. "It was killing him to tell me what little he did...he wouldn't have done that unless he thought he was giving me the whole story." He sighed and told Voight, "You were right."

"Sometimes I wish I wasn't," Hank told him.

"What do I do now?" Kelly asked.

"Go home, get some sleep, I'll keep an eye on him."

"I can't, I need to stay with him."

"We talked about this, Severide."

"I know, but I'm not leaving."

Voight looked at him for a minute, then said only, "Alright, let's go."

* * *

Voight opened his eyes and saw Casey and Severide asleep in the hospital bed. Over the past few days Casey had developed a high tolerance to sleeping at night with the lights on, so to make it easier for him and hopefully less confusing, they'd obliged him on that. He knew that Casey's whole stay in the hospital had been hell, but the lieutenant honestly looked better now than the first day he'd been brought in.

Everybody was hoping that before too much longer the doctor could discharge Casey and he could go home, the question was how would he adapt back to life outside of the hospital? What he'd come to accept as 'normal' was gone, and what he once knew as normal before that time, was so far in the past and nobody except Severide had any clue how long ago that had been for him. Returning to anything resembling his old routine would be hard as hell, especially if Casey chose _not_ to disclose what happened to the men he worked with. Of course Voight realized Casey was in a no-win situation, either he kept what happened to himself and continued to suffer in silence, or he dropped this bombshell on everyone who had worked alongside and known Gabby for years, who would never be able to imagine she could possibly do any such thing, and that would no doubt create a rift in the firehouse. It was his word against a dead woman's, who was everyone likely to believe? He knew Severide would back Casey, and that would lend the Truck lieutenant more credibility, but the rift would still be there. If needed, he could always come in and remove any doubt that what they said was true, but that would be a hard pill for everyone to swallow, and the family dynamic of the firehouse likely wouldn't survive knowing something like that. Catch-22 indeed.

* * *

Casey felt somebody beside him in the hospital bed. He didn't know what time it was, if it was morning or night, he was surprised at how quiet the room was, he opened his eyes and slowly turned over, and felt his whole body freeze. Pins and needles coursed through every inch of his body and he could hardly even breathe.

Antonio Dawson was laying on the other side of the bed in a dead sleep.

Casey felt his legs trembling and the vibrations slowly worked up to the rest of his body and he was shaking like a leaf, it was another minute or so before he was able to open his mouth and scream in terror.

Voight was down the hall when he heard the noise from Casey's room and ran to see what was the matter, and even he was surprised by what he saw. Antonio had been released from the hospital a few days ago, arguably in well enough condition to go home and mourn his sister, and the last anybody had heard from him he was still there, and still in the dark about what Gabby had done, so what he was doing here was anybody's guess. Voight made his way into the room and quickly extracted Antonio from the situation and dragged him out to the corridor.

"What're you doing here?" he asked his detective as he let go of him.

Antonio was wide eyed and confused. "I came to see how Casey was doing, he was asleep so I decided to stay until he woke up, I guess I dozed off after that. I didn't mean to scare him."

Voight was satisfied with that answer and exhaled, "It's alright, I don't think you did any real damage."

"How's he holding up?" Antonio asked.

Voight shrugged. "He has good days and bad ones, most of them have been bad. Antonio...I think it would be a good idea if _you_ handled the arrangements for Gabby. Casey simply isn't up to it."

The look on Antonio's face told Voight he wasn't in much better shape, though for different reasons. Voight had decided he'd let Antonio bury his sister and properly grieve for her, and _then_ he'd break the news to Antonio. As there was still an open investigation to what and who she'd been dealing with, he would have to be brought in on it sooner or later, right now they could afford to wait for later.

"What's Casey gonna say?"

"I don't think he'll be able to attend," Voight told him. "This has all been too much for him, and he doesn't want his work family to see him fall apart."

Antonio glumly nodded in understanding. "Okay...I'll...I'll get it taken care of."

"I'm sorry, bro, I know how much you loved her," Hank said as he pulled Antonio into an embrace and clapped him on the back.

"I still can't believe she's gone, Hank," Antonio said as he pulled back. "I...I don't even know who's told Eva and Diego, or _if_ they've been told...how do I explain to them that Gabby's never coming back?"

"Unfortunately I think they'll understand," Voight told him. "I'll catch up in a minute, I have to go check on him."

Voight returned to Casey's room, Matt had quit screaming but he sat straight up in the bed like he was going to bolt at a moment's notice.

"Sorry about that, Matt."

"What's Antonio doing here?"

"It's alright, he doesn't know," Voight assured the frantic younger man. "He came to pay his respects."

Casey covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"I told him he should deal with the funeral arrangements. Do you agree?"

Casey sighed and nodded in response.

"Okay."

"Where's Kelly?" Casey asked, a note of panic evident in his voice.

"He's on his way. You want me to stay with you until he gets here?"

Casey exhaled a longer sigh and shook his head. "I'll be fine."


	6. Chapter 6

The day finally came when Casey's tox screen came back negative for everything and the doctor was satisfied he was fully detoxed, though he gave Casey a referral to a psychiatrist to speak to as part of his continuing treatment. Kelly came to the hospital and got him, they got in his car and he drove Casey back to his apartment. Severide had thought Casey would be thrilled to finally be out of the hospital, but the whole ride back, Casey seemed to withdraw into himself, he wouldn't talk, and he tried to curl himself up into a tight ball in his seat. Severide told himself that it was just an adjustment for Matt and he'd come around soon.

"You shouldn't be wanting for anything, Cindy has been cooking overtime, I got the freezer stocked with casseroles, meatballs, lasagna, baked chicken, smoked ribs, baked steak and gravy, a chocolate cake, the woman is unstoppable," Kelly said as they pulled up. Nothing he said had any noticeable effect on Casey.

"I got some of your stuff and brought it over already," Kelly told him as he unlocked the door. "Should have everything you need for now."

Casey absently nodded but didn't speak. They went in and Casey walked over to the couch and settled on it.

"No...not there," Kelly told him. Casey looked up at him with questioning eyes. "I'll put you in the bedroom so you can relax. Come on."

Casey looked at Kelly and reluctantly got up. He followed Kelly into the bedroom and saw two of his bags sitting in the corner. He looked around the room as if trying to figure out what if anything had changed about the place.

"I...I can't...I don't want to put you out-"

"It's alright, Casey, I'll be right in the next room, if you need me, just yell," Kelly told him.

Casey didn't have any idea what to say. He put his arms around Kelly and hugged him.

Kelly patted him on the back and told him, "It's alright, Casey, you're home now."

* * *

The days at Kelly's apartment passed better than they had at Med, but not necessarily quicker. Casey didn't adjust well to being out of the hospital and hardly came out of the bedroom. He slept in Kelly's bed all night and stayed in it most of the day every day. Severide quietly moved about the apartment so as not to disturb Matt, but every so often he poked his head in the bedroom to check on Casey, every time he seemed to be asleep. After the first day, Casey kept the blinds shut and the curtains closed to block out the daylight and seemed to want to make the room as dark as possible. Kelly also noticed that out of all the clothes he'd brought from Casey's apartment, the only things Casey wore day after day were his pajamas or sweatpants and the bulkiest long sleeve shirts he owned, as if he was trying to hide himself, though Kelly guessed in some weird way it made sense. He said nothing about any of it and merely offered Casey his unquestioning support.

Once in a while Casey padded out to the kitchen but he wouldn't eat with Kelly and he hardly touched anything in the fridge. Insult to injury, he looked in the fridge the first day and saw there wasn't any beer. He looked in the cupboards and there wasn't anything stronger either. He knew Kelly Severide never ran out of liquor, and if he did he never _stayed_ out, and he knew it was no coincidence there was no alcohol in the apartment. One night Kelly tried to bribe Casey to come out and eat by bringing home a pizza, Casey sat at the table and put two slices on his plate, but the disappointment was evident in his face when Kelly set a bottle of soda on the table in front of him.

"Sorry, buddy," Kelly told him. "I know you'd rather have a beer but with as little as you've got in you these days I'd rather _not_ risk you throwing up and dehydrating yourself even more than you already are."

With a pronounced pout, Casey reluctantly ate the pizza and drank half of the bottle of cola before returning to the bedroom, where he stayed for the rest of the night.

Kelly spent his nights on the couch, listening to what was going on in the bedroom, most of the time there was nothing, some nights he could hear Casey crying, and though every nerve in his body was screaming for him to go in there and comfort his friend, he decided he needed to back off and let Casey deal with what was going on by himself. He knew if Casey _really_ needed him, he knew where to find him, so he stayed back and waited. A couple of times Casey came to him in the night, he didn't say anything, all he could do was cry as he sat beside his best friend, who never questioned what it was about, just held him and let him wear himself out, and let Casey feel his presence and know he wasn't alone.

Seven days into Casey's stay, Kelly had quietly observed something the whole week Matt was there, and it had finally reached a point Kelly needed to say something. Coincidentally that day, Casey had finally come out of the bedroom and eaten with him in the kitchen.

"Matt, I know what happened to you, I know what you were put through, and I know that it's haunting you now...but you've been here a _week_ and you've never set foot in the shower. Now I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous, you need to get cleaned up."

Matt looked at him with wide eyes full of fear and merely responded, "I can't."

"You have to. I know you didn't like the nurses washing you in the hospital but at least you were kept clean. It's been seven days, I can tell just by looking at you that you haven't showered since then."

"Kelly, I can't!" Matt insisted. He was practically hyperventilating as he demanded of his best friend, "Don't you understand? I _can't_!"

Kelly said nothing, just sat there for a minute in silence. Then he got up from the table, went to the bathroom, and Casey heard a strange sound of something being ripped, and he ran to see what it was.

He got there just in time to see Kelly finishing tearing the shower curtain off the rod hanging over the bathtub, rings and all.

"There," Kelly said dismissively as he dropped the curtain on the floor, "Don't take a shower, take a bath instead, you can lock the door if that makes you feel better."

Casey stood there in a daze, feeling like he'd just been punched in the gut from Kelly's cold and crass change in attitude.

"Kelly..."

Severide sighed as he stepped towards Casey and surprised the blonde man by hugging him.

"I'm not mad at you," Kelly said in a notably softer tone, "I'm just frustrated because I don't know how to help you." He patted Casey's shoulders assuredly and told him, "Nobody's going to come in and bother you...there's a bolt on the door if you want to lock it. You'll be fine."

"I...may not...lock it," Casey said with noted difficulty. "I mean, if you...if it's not..."

Kelly seemed to pick up on what Casey was trying to say but couldn't bring himself to. "You need me, just holler." They'd been friends too long for much of anything to be too awkward between them.

* * *

"Kelly?"

Severide had had the volume muted on the TV just incase he heard anything from the bathroom that might alarm him. He hadn't actually expected Matt calling him to be one of them, but he got up from the couch and went to see what was the matter.

"You alright, Casey?"

Kelly found the door not only wasn't locked but had actually been left open an inch, he opened it and stepped in.

Casey had the tub filled up to his chest, the water was filmy white on the surface from the soap, Casey sat in the tub with his hands on the edges, looking straight ahead but didn't actually seem to be looking at anything.

"You okay?" Kelly tried again as he took another step in.

As he got closer to the tub he noticed something looked off. Casey's hair was wet but it stuck out in spikes, and his forehead looked like he had a layer of Vaseline caked on it. Kelly realized it was the oil from his hair, he still hadn't washed it and instead it looked like the oil ran down his face.

"You need some help?" Kelly asked.

Casey said nothing, but Severide noticed his knuckles turn white from gripping the edge of the tub harder, and noticed the small tremors coursing through his arms. He looked like he was afraid if he let go for a second, he'd drown, and Kelly took that as an answer.

"Okay, give me a minute."

Kelly grabbed the rinse cup off the sink counter and ran the tap until the water was warm and filled it up. Then he crouched down beside the tub, used his free hand to shield Casey's eyes and poured the water over his head. He felt Casey's eyelids flinch against his hand but otherwise the blonde man didn't move. Putting the cup aside, Kelly dipped his hands in the hot water and grabbed the bottle of shampoo. The oils from Casey's hair ate up the soap and there were few suds as he scrubbed through Casey's scalp, a testament to how long it had actually been since he'd washed his hair. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to talk to Casey while he worked or not, if that would make it more or less awkward for him. Granted it was an awkward enough situation for both of them, but Kelly didn't mind, he knew that Casey still wasn't firing on all cylinders and the man was going to need some help before he could ever return to anything resembling normal.

"Hold your breath," Kelly told him as he gently pushed Casey's head down under the water. He ran his fingernails over Casey's head to make sure the soap was out, and Casey emerged gasping for air a couple seconds later.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Kelly asked, trying to lighten the mood. He had an idea that Casey was debating whether to tell him something or not, and he hoped Casey felt secure enough to talk to him about whatever it was.

* * *

An hour later Casey still hadn't come out of the bathroom. Severide went back and was shocked to find Casey still sitting in the tub as he'd last seen him.

"Casey, isn't that water freezing by now?"

"...Just about," he finally answered.

Kelly went over to the tub, stuck a finger in and felt the water was ice cold.

"Okay, you're getting out _now_." He reached under the faucet and found the lever to open the drain, then he grabbed a towel off the rack, grabbed Casey by the arm and pulled him to his feet and wrapped him up in the towel. He didn't miss the fact that Casey reached over, pulled a second towel off, and wrapped it around his upper body to conceal everything under his neck. He stepped over the tub and Kelly all but pushed him out of the bathroom and back over to the bedroom.

"Dry off and get dressed," Kelly told him, feeling every bit like a father telling his child what to do because he hadn't learned the routine himself yet.

"Kelly..." Casey clutched the towel wrapped around his shoulders as he sat on the bed. "There's something...I think..."

"What?" Kelly asked him. "What is it?"

Casey looked towards the floor for a second, then slowly looked up at Kelly, and told him, "You don't know..._everything_...that happened."

"Yes, I do," Kelly said simply. It was with great difficulty he fought back the urge to tell Casey 'I know more of what happened than _you_ do'.

Casey shook his head. "No..."

Kelly nodded, "I know about everything, Casey, I found out the morning after the shooting."

Casey lowered his head ashamed and folded his arms over his head as he groaned, "God..."

"it's alright, Casey, nobody's blaming you for what happened, I know none of it's your fault."

Casey sucked in a nervous breath and choked back out, "...you hate me..."

"No," Kelly stepped over to the bed and sat down beside Casey to get his attention. "I don't hate you, I told you in the hospital, I never could, and I meant that, Casey. I knew _then_ what happened, I don't blame you."

Casey sucked in another breath that came back out as a sob, "I didn't want you to hate me. 's why I didn't tell anyone."

Kelly put his arm around Casey and pulled his friend against him as he cried.

"Nothing could make me hate you, Matt."

Casey struggled to get a couple more breaths in and said, "I still love her."

_That_ one he hadn't been expecting. But he didn't let it show, he patted Casey on the back and told him, "It's okay, Matt." Something occurred to Kelly and he asked Casey, "You want me to stay with you tonight?"

Casey pulled back and looked at him and asked uncertainly, "You don't hate me?"

"Of course not."

"Please," Casey leaned against him again and rested his head on Kelly's shoulder, "please..."

Kelly calmly rocked on the bed with Casey in his arms and told his best friend, "It's okay, Casey, it's going to be okay."

* * *

"Kelly," Casey said a few days later, "where's your razor?"

"Why?" Kelly looked up from the TV to the blonde man who was standing off to the side in the living room.

Casey didn't roll his eyes but the look on his face was just as good as he ran his hand down his chin to emphasize the beard that had steadily been growing since he left the hospital.

Kelly looked at him and asked innocently, "You mind if I stay and watch?"

This time Casey did roll his eyes. "Come on, Kelly, what do you think, I'm going to slit my wrists?"

Kelly didn't want to start anything, he chose his words carefully as he responded, "No offense, Matt, but I can't be sure of that, can I?"

Casey looked at him and sighed in defeat.

"Fair point," he conceded, "Okay, fine."

Kelly stood up and told him, "I'll go get it."

* * *

"That looks better," Casey said as he tapped the razor against the sink one last time and put it back in its stand.

"Feels better too," Kelly teased as he ran a hand over Casey's smooth cheek.

"You're one to talk," Casey said as he squirmed out of Kelly's reach.

Kelly didn't know what it was but over the last few days Casey finally seemed to be coming out of his shell, a little anyway. He still hadn't been able to really get himself dressed and just beat around the apartment in his pajamas most days, but he came out of the bedroom for part of the day and was engaging, he could actually make small conversations, and he'd started to eat a little more regularly. Kelly thought they were on the right track now, but there was something on his mind he was worried might derail any progress Casey had made. He waited until they sat down on the couch in the living room before he approached the subject, though he had a suspicion there was a connection to what he was going to say and why Casey suddenly wanted to improve his appearance.

"Casey...the uh...the...they're having the funeral tomorrow," Severide told him.

Casey nodded sadly. "I know."

"Do you uh...are you going to go?"

"I can't," Casey shook his head, "I can't be around the others and...pretend nothing's happened, I just can't."

"I understand, perfectly," Kelly told him. "You don't want to go, we won't go."

"But I want to see it," Casey responded. "I talked to Otis, he said he could stream it live so w-I could watch it from here...if you don't mind..."

Kelly was mildly surprised but he didn't take long to answer lest Casey get the wrong idea from his silence.

"_We'll_ watch it," he replied. "Even dead and five miles away, I'm not leaving you alone with her."

Casey's face scrunched up into a melancholic smile and a small laugh escaped from his lips.

"Can I ask you a question?" Kelly wanted to know. "Is this...just to make sure that she's gone, or..."

"I _still_ love her...don't ask me why, I can't answer...I know better, but she was still my wife and I love her," Casey said. "I can't bring myself to go in person, but I have to see it."

Kelly nodded. "Okay. That's all there is to it then."


	7. Chapter 7

Kelly knew Gabby's funeral would be upsetting for Casey to say the least. He anticipated the whole day being hell for his friend. Casey parked himself on the couch in his pajamas with his knees against his chest and wouldn't budge. Severide tore open a new box of Kleenex because he expected a good portion of them to be used up before the day was over, and he set a six-pack of water bottles on the coffee table so they wouldn't have to get up during the service, and since it was a chilled gloomy day, very fitting for the funeral he thought, he took a heavy flannel blanket out of the closet and draped half of it over Casey, and he sat beside Matt on the couch and they watched the live footage of the funeral. Casey was already crying just as people piled in to the church. Everybody from 51 was there, the extended Dawson family was there, CPD, the nurses and doctors they knew from Med, everybody had turned out for the service. From the outside looking in, it looked like any other funeral for any other member of the Firehouse 51 family, and taken out of context from the facts, it was a beautiful service. The church was beautiful, the flowers that filled the whole room were beautiful, a pristine white closed casket had been selected, if it had been anyone else, it would actually be very touching. Even as it was, what Kelly knew couldn't completely undo all the feelings he'd had about Gabby as one of their family for all the years she'd been there. He had to be the strong one and pulled Casey against him and let the blonde man cry on his shoulder, if he was honest he could feel his own eyes stinging with the onset of tears as he watched people get up and speak about Gabby as a person, as a paramedic, a daughter, sister, a loving individual. For a short while, all the rage that Kelly had felt at knowing the truth of what she was like, subsided and instead he felt the tears trailing down his face and felt a pained sob stuck in his throat as he tried for the most part to keep himself held together for Casey, whose body was wracked with loud hiccuping sobs halfway through the service, who went through a quarter of the box of Kleenex before the funeral was over, half of them used to blow his nose, the other half to brush away the tears when his eyes and face stung too much from them.

The footage showed everything from the church, to the drive to the cemetery, to the burial, in all it was three hours before everybody finally left and headed for their homes. By that time Casey was long past inconsolable and clung to Severide as he cried his eyes out, only he knew the exact reasons why. Kelly held his best friend and allowed himself to mourn with him, struggling to let go of any fond memories of Gabby that still remained. As far as Kelly was concerned, those memories were staying at the grave with her, after this point, they were no longer a part of him.

Casey was too upset to eat anything at lunch, and finally he got up and just went back to bed, and there he stayed for the next several hours. Kelly stayed in the living room and sat on the couch and tried to think what to do now to help Matt.

* * *

It was a good thing that Gabby's funeral had been held earlier in the day, by late afternoon the whole city was being bombarded with a rainstorm, the proverbial perfect end to the perfect day. Now all of Chicago had been plunged into an even darker shade of gloom and dreariness, very fitting for the occasion.

Kelly opened the bedroom door and addressed the lump curled up under the blanket and said, "Come on, Casey, get up, I got dinner."

Casey grumbled softly as he turned on his side and pulled the covers up over his head. "I don't want any."

"Too bad," Kelly stood his ground, "it won't be any good once it gets cold."

"Then _you_ eat it," Casey replied.

"I _can't_, now come on, Matt, you haven't eaten anything all day," Kelly went over to the bed and whipped the covers back and told Casey, "I'm not going to stand by and watch you make yourself sick."

"Okay, fine," Casey grumbled as he reluctantly left the bed since it was obvious Severide wouldn't let him get any rest. He followed Kelly out to the living room, to the kitchen and asked, "What is it?"

"Comfort food."

"What?"

Kelly flipped the light switch and Casey saw two brown paper bags with fast food logos on the sides resting on the table and two plates set. The two firefighters took their regular seats, Kelly reached into one bag and took out a burger wrapped in paper and set the bag over by Casey. He took out the second burger which was still warm and could smell it through the wrapper, instantly he felt his mouth starting to water in response to the aroma of pickles and onions and mustard. Severide put a packet of fries on his plate and handed the second one over to Casey. The two men ate in silence for a few minutes, Casey doing little more than picking at his food but gradually he was eating it.

Finally Kelly said, simply because he wasn't sure what else to say, "It _was_ a nice service."

Casey nodded but didn't look at him.

"How're you doing?" Kelly asked.

Casey chanced looking him in the eyes. "Okay."

"You know, if you're not..." Kelly realized how stupid what he was saying sounded, but he couldn't think of anything better to say, "that's okay too."

"Thanks, but I think I'm doing fine," Casey responded with a hint of a smile. "Thanks."

"For what?" Kelly asked.

"Everything."

Kelly offered a small smile in return. "No problem."

* * *

Kelly spent the night with Casey in the bedroom, for the most part he guessed Casey slept peacefully, though he was woken up once during the night when he felt a sudden weight on him. Casey had rolled over on him and clung to him as he whimpered in his sleep. Kelly didn't say anything, he just draped an arm over Casey's back and held him and waited for him to quiet down. After a few minutes Casey calmed down and rested his head against Kelly's collarbone. Kelly fell back asleep shortly after that.

The next couple days passed uneventfully, Casey moved around the apartment and acted a little bit alive and Kelly took that as a sign of improvement.

The night after that, he was sleeping on the couch again when he felt a set of hands pressing down on his stomach and rib cage and shaking him. He woke up and realized it was Casey trying to wake him up.

"What is it, Matt?" he asked as he snapped awake, "What's wrong?"

Though the room was dark, Casey stood over him and Kelly could see he was near hysterics, his skin was flushed with perspiration, his breathing was ragged.

"Did you mean what you said?" Casey asked him. "When you said I could talk to you, did you mean it?"

Kelly instantly sat up and moved over so Casey could sit beside him. "Of course I did. What's the matter?"

Casey anxiously sat down next to him, and he breathed heavily for a few seconds as he tried to pull himself together.

"Matt, what's wrong?"

Kelly felt the air being choked out of him as Casey hugged him a little too close to the neck, clinging to Severide in terror.

"I'm scared you'll hate me when you know."

That confession frightened the hell out of Severide, but he kept his cool.

"Casey, I told you before, I could never..."

"You know? You-you-you _saw_?" The panic was clear in Matt's voice.

Kelly nodded, "I saw the videos, Casey."

"How?"

"I found the phone Gabby kept them on."

Casey tightened his grip on Kelly impossibly moreso. "Wha-what happened to them?"

"Voight's got the phone, I'm guessing it's in an evidence locker somewhere."

Casey groaned and buried his face in the crook of Kelly's neck.

"Matt, I know what's on the videos, I told you already, I know it wasn't your fault. What's got you so upset?"

Casey pressed his face against Severide's neck even harder and alternated between moaning and crying. Kelly patiently waited for Casey to calm down enough to explain.

He didn't know when, but Casey finally quieted down, and for a minute Severide thought he'd fallen back asleep, then suddenly, he spoke.

"I didn't know at first," Casey began. "I didn't know that Gabby was...slipping me pills to put me to sleep...we had a..." the embarrassment was present as he continued, "great sex life, we were so in love, I had erotic dreams about her all the time."

Kelly smiled to himself but refrained from laughing. He knew this was very personal for Casey to confess, especially in light of what happened, and was determined not to make it more awkward for him than it already was. Even knowing what all he did, for a brief moment it made him smile to hear his best friend so much in love.

"Then one day she told me that she'd been giving me pills, the dreams weren't really dreams, I just wasn't awake enough to know it...I thought she was kidding," Casey told him. "She was always joking she had everything in Ambo she needed to do whatever she wanted with me..." the lightheartedness was gone from his voice as he pressed on. "Then one night, she says she's got an idea, she wants to try something different. She said it'll be great, a whole new experience...she had a syringe, and a small vial."

Kelly felt Casey tense against him as he recollected.

"She promised it was just one time, and if I didn't like it, we'd forget about it. I thought...what harm could it do? Gabby's a responsible person, she knows what she's doing, she'd never...do anything wrong like...like that. I..." he pressed his face against Kelly's shoulder for a second. "I never asked her what it was, I just trusted her. She gave me the shot...I couldn't move...I mean almost completely paralyzed..._almost_. When it was over Gabby said, since I _clearly_ enjoyed it, we'd have to do it again sometime, try something different."

Kelly subconsciously tightened his hold on Casey as he spoke.

"I didn't want to...but I thought...if it's just once in a while...I can deal with that, it made _her_ happy, she _loved_ it...but it wasn't just once in a while. She started bringing different stuff home, stuff I _knew_ what it was and I _knew_ what would happen if I took it...she said if I loved her, I'd do it. I _did_ love her...I wanted her to be happy. But I couldn't figure out what she got out of it, I would be so tired, so dizzy, I could hardly move, I couldn't _do_ anything. I felt awful, but she said I made her happy, and she was always so nice the next day. I hated what was happening...but I didn't say no the first time...so how could I say no the next time? Or the time after that? But then, I _did_ tell her no, I told her I didn't want to do it. She wouldn't listen. She said it didn't matter if I wanted to or not because she controlled what happened to me. Then I found out she'd been recording all the times we did it, she made videos, and I tried...I tried to find where she kept them, but I couldn't...and...she started getting reckless, she would mix stuff together, have me on two or three drugs at a time, and I _knew_ what could happen, I _knew_ it could kill me, I begged her to stop..." Casey sighed, somehow he'd held himself together this far but he sounded near tears as he told Kelly, "She wouldn't listen. She _never_ listened when I said no."

Kelly listened to all of this, and he fought back every urge in his body, he maintained a semi-tight hold on Casey with one arm and with his free hand he absentmindedly stroked over the back of Casey's head almost obsessively.

"She'd started sneaking into the shower at 51 when I was in there...and that was the last straw, I could take what she did in our home in private...but I couldn't take it when she was actually _trying_ to get someone to walk in on us at work. I couldn't keep her out there, so I started locking the bathroom door in our apartment so I didn't have to worry about her filming me in the shower. One night she kicked the door open when I was in the shower, and, she...she..."

Kelly closed his eyes, trying to push away the mental image of what Casey couldn't bring himself to say. That must've been when he started only showering at 51 when Ambo was out on call.

"That last week, I don't even know what all I was on...I really thought I had the flu, I felt so horrible...she promised, she promised she'd take care of me, she promised it would be alright. I still believed her. I was so miserable, and she wanted to have sex again, I couldn't...I begged her to leave me alone and let me sleep...I heard her in the kitchen and I knew she was getting another batch ready. My head was in such a fog...I couldn't get the door unlocked, so I broke the window and jumped out...I don't even remember hitting the ground, I just remember wandering through the streets, trying to run, and I knew she was behind me all the time...I thought I'm never going to get away from her. When the shooting started, I couldn't tell if I'd been hit or not, I didn't even look...all I could think about was she was right behind me. I looked back..."

Casey's whole body tensed up against Severide's as he relived the horror of that moment.

"I knew I should've gone to her and see if she could be resuscitated, but I was too scared to move...I thought if I moved towards her she'd get up and come after me again...I hardly even remember Voight coming up...you know the rest."

"Casey, I am so sorry that you had to go through all of that alone," Kelly said.

"It was my own fault," Casey told him, "if I'd said no the first time, then maybe it would've counted all the times after it that I said no."

Kelly tightened his grip on Casey and slowly rocked both of them on the couch.

"It counted, Casey," Severide told him just above a whisper, "It counted."

"Then why didn't she stop?" Casey asked helplessly as he clung to Kelly. "All the times I begged her to stop, why wouldn't she?"

Kelly sighed as he shook his head. "I don't know, buddy, I'm sorry."

"I killed her," Casey said in a horrified whisper.

"No you didn't."

"I _knew_ she'd chase after me, she followed me down that alley."

"There's no way you could've known what was going to happen, you didn't plan it, Casey, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time...only it wasn't wrong...you're alive, and you weren't shot, and you're safe now," Kelly told him.

"But Gabby..."

"I know...I know, it was hard to see her like that...but it's for the best, Casey, she can't hurt you anymore," Kelly said.

"But she is," Casey tearfully replied, "I'm always going to remember what she did to me."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"I loved her so much...I thought she loved me...she told me...the first time I told her 'no', she said to me that after all the time she spent chasing after me, getting me to herself, she was going to do what she wanted and there was nothing I could do to stop her."

"Casey, that's not love."

"I know...but I loved her. And she said it herself she wanted me for years, when Hallie and I broke up, when we got back together...after Hallie was murdered. Why didn't she love me?"

Kelly shook his head in defeat, "I don't know, Matt. I don't know."

Casey broke down sobbing as he pressed his head against Kelly's shoulder. Severide held his best friend close and sat in silence as he listened to Casey cry himself to sleep.

* * *

Casey slowly opened his eyes and realized it was morning. Then he realized he was laying down, but not in the bedroom. He looked down and saw he was laying on Severide's couch...and that Severide was laying under him.

Casey's eyes widened as he moved to get up, but something was pinning him down.

"Hey, hey, take it easy," Kelly told him, "calm down, Casey."

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry," Casey struggled to get up, not putting it together that the reason he couldn't was because Severide was holding him down. "I didn't mean-"

"Casey, _relax_," Kelly said. "It's alright, just calm down."

Casey didn't know what was going on but he finally stopped struggling and collapsed back against Kelly.

"What happened?"

"You fell asleep, and I didn't want to wake you," Kelly explained. "I thought we'd both sleep better if we could actually lay _down_."

"I'm sorry," Casey tiredly rubbed his eyes.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"I..." Casey grimaced, "I didn't want to tell you what was going on...I didn't want anyone to know."

"I understand, but I'm glad you told me. I'm sorry you had to go through everything alone."

"What happens now?" Casey asked.

"Aside from Voight and his people, nobody knows."

"Antonio?"

"Antonio doesn't know. Nobody at 51 is going to know anything unless you decide to tell them."

"I can't tell them about what happened," Casey groaned.

"Casey, how can you let them go on thinking Gabby was a wonderful person?"

"I can live with that sooner than everybody knowing what she did to me," Casey said, "that's what I've been trying to avoid this whole time."

"Okay, I get it, I'm sorry," Kelly said. "I just hate that there's nothing I can do."

"But you mean what you said before?" Casey asked, "You don't hate me?"

"It wasn't your fault."

"I didn't say no."

"She should never have put you in that position to begin with. Nobody who loves someone does something like that."

"But I let her do it because I _did_ love her," Casey said.

"That doesn't matter, she never should've done what she did," Kelly told him. "That's not on you."

"I went along with it."

"Casey, if she didn't listen the first time you _did_ say no, she _wouldn't_ have listened if you'd said it the first time she drugged you," Kelly said. "I'm sorry, but that's the truth. If she loved you, she would've listened."

"You keep saying that," Casey told him, "but how could we have been together all those years, and she didn't love me?"

"I wish I knew, buddy, I'm sorry that I don't," Kelly said. "But you know it's true, if you saw this happening to someone else, you know what you'd say to them."

Casey moaned. He knew, but it was different when it was him.


	8. Chapter 8

Casey looked at the shower curtain hanging over the bathtub that Kelly had replaced, and he stood by the door looking at it for several minutes, before he suddenly turned, abruptly running into Kelly who stood in the doorway, and told him, "I can't do this."

"Come on, Casey, you need to get cleaned up." It had already been a week since he'd been able to coax Matt into the tub, something else he'd been in no hurry to do again. Kelly figured since they were having trouble anyway, they might as well try for biting the bullet. He wasn't unsympathetic to what Casey had been through but he knew the longer Casey couldn't get near a shower without going into a panic attack, the worse it was going to be for him to recover from what happened.

"But I can't do it!" Matt told him. "I'm not trying to be difficult, Kelly, I just _can't_."

"Okay, okay, let me think," Severide said.

"I'm well aware how ridiculous this is, Kelly, I'm not enjoying this," Casey said. "Do you have any idea how embarrassing it'll be when I finally go back to 51 and I can't-"

"I think I got an idea," Kelly told him.

"What?"

"It might not work but I think it's worth trying."

"What?" Casey asked.

"Don't freak out on me, okay?"

"Oh God," Casey groaned, "what is it?"

"You got a pair of swim trunks?" Kelly asked.

* * *

Kelly rapped on the bedroom door.

"Casey, you okay?"

The door opened and Casey stood in the doorway dressed in a pair of black swim trunks, his arms folded tight against his chest, his skin erupted in gooseflesh as he tried visibly hard not to shake.

"Okay, come on," Kelly said.

Casey reluctantly followed Kelly to the bathroom, the shower was already running and steam was rising above the curtain. Casey took two steps toward it, then acting on a reflex, turned and tried to bolt again, but Kelly stopped him.

"It's alright, Casey," Kelly said as he lightly pushed Matt over towards the shower. "Come on, you can do this."

"I can't," the panic was there as Casey responded.

"You can, I'm right here, nothing's going to happen," Kelly assured him.

Casey bit his bottom lip as he cautiously reached a hand out and grabbed the edge of the shower curtain and drew it back. The steam was warm, the water would be warm, and he was freezing, but he still couldn't bring himself to step in.

"It's okay, Matt," Kelly told him. "Just step over."

Casey half turned and looked like he wanted to run, but he knew Kelly wouldn't let him. He turned to the front again and sucked in a heavy breath as he swung one leg over the side of the tub, then the other. The hot water instantly beat down on him and that also made him want to turn and run, but Kelly was right behind him and used his weight against Casey to keep him in.

"It's alright, Casey, just calm down."

"Kelly-"

"You're okay, just take it easy."

Casey inched his way into the middle of the shower and let the water pour down on him. The heat was comforting but he still stood rigid as a board with his arms pressed tight against his chest. He waited, listened, listened for the approaching footsteps, waited to hear the curtain jerk back, waited to hear her voice.

"Casey."

Matt felt the hand on his skin and he screamed and just about jumped.

"Sorry," Kelly said, "_breathe_, Casey."

Breathe, right, he knew he forgot something.

"Turn around, Casey."

He did, slowly.

"Why didn't you tell anyone what was going on?" Kelly asked.

Casey rubbed the hot water from his eyes and looked at Severide as he answered, "Gabby said if I ever told anyone what she was doing, she'd make sure everyone at 51 saw the videos...I'd do anything to avoid that, and she knew it."

"I'm sorry, buddy."

Matt felt like the walls were closing in on him, he tried to get past Kelly but Severide blocked him.

"I want to get out."

"Sorry, Casey, you still need to get cleaned up."

"Kelly..."

Severide took a step back and said, "I'm gonna close the curtain, I'll be right out here, okay? Just let me know when you're done."

"Kelly..."

Severide stepped back, the curtain closed, and Casey felt like he was trapped in an enclosed space. He looked around, he listened to the sound of the water running, he felt his anxiety levels steadily climbing and just about to shoot through the roof.

"Kelly?"

"I'm right here," he heard from the other side of the room.

Casey looked up at the ceiling and saw the steam rising towards it.

"Talk to me," Casey said, hoping that it would help.

"What about?"

Casey felt his stomach pulsating and it felt harder to breathe, but he forced himself not to lose it.

"Anything...just...just talk."

"Okay," Kelly replied, his tone evident that he didn't quite get it, "Benny called the other day, he's thinking of coming up and getting start on his annual ice fishing trip, he's trying to talk me into going with him..."

Ten minutes later Casey shoved the curtain clear to the side and was just about to hyperventilate as he stepped over the tub and announced, "I'm done!"

Kelly was waiting with a towel and wrapped it around him. "Take it easy, Casey, you did fine." Almost as an afterthought he noticed Casey's hair laying flat and his skin glistening from being washed.

Casey breathed in and out heavily as he tried to compose himself, to listen to him trying to force air into his lungs, Severide could guess how hard what he'd just done was for him.

"Calm down, calm down, you're okay, it's over, alright? You're good," Kelly told him.

Casey didn't seem to hear him. Instead he made his way to the door and just about went through Severide to do it.

"Oh _God_," Casey groaned as he got to the hall and buried his face in his hands, "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing, you'll get past this, you just have to be patient," Kelly told him as he followed him into the bedroom.

"GET OUT!"

"Sorry," Kelly quickly exited the bedroom and pulled the door shut behind him.

A few minutes later the door opened and Casey stepped out dressed in a fresh change of clothes, actually wearing _clothes_, Kelly observed, not the pajamas he'd been wearing for 2 weeks.

"I'm sorry," Casey told him. "I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's okay, I get it," Kelly said.

"No you don't."

"No I don't..." Kelly replied humbly, "but I'm trying."

Casey sighed and hugged him. "Thank you."

Kelly rubbed his back and told him, "If you do decide to tell the others, I'll back you up."

Casey groaned. "I can't tell them."

"If you change your mind-"

"No, I can't ever tell them...they all loved Gabby so much, I can't take that from them," Casey said.

"If you ever _do_ change your mind," Kelly tried again, "you'll have me in your corner."

Casey slowly took that in and nodded. "Thanks, Kelly, I appreciate it...but I just can't. I can't tell them what happened, I can't tell them what she did..."

"Casey, they're your family, they'll understand."

"Would they?" he asked apprehensively. "Would _you_ if you hadn't seen the video?"

Kelly honestly hadn't thought about that. Until he saw the video he was deep seated in denial, no matter what Voight said, until he saw it for himself he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

"See?" Casey asked, "It's just better that nobody knows."

"You have to tell _somebody_, Casey."

Matt looked at him skeptically and asked, "Who?"

* * *

Kelly drove Casey to his first therapy appointment. They got out of Severide's car and started up the sidewalk, halfway to the door, Casey turned and knocked into Kelly as he tried to run.

"No-no-no, I can't do it, I can't," Casey was about to have a full blown panic attack.

Kelly restrained Casey and tried to get him to calm down, but with little luck. He looked at the sign in front of the building and saw the psychiatrist was a woman, he wondered if that was the problem.

"Casey, calm down."

"I can't go in, I won't," Casey struggled against him.

"Casey, _breathe_, and calm down," Kelly told him.

"Kelly, I can't, I can't, I can't..."

"Okay, okay, okay, just take it easy," Kelly said firmly. Casey stopped fighting with him. "Will you do me a favor? Just stay here for a minute and don't go anywhere."

"What're you gonna do?"

"I'm going in there, I'll be right back."

"Kelly-"

"Sta-a-ay _put_!" Kelly told him. To his surprise, Casey did.

Kelly went inside the building, then came back a couple minutes later.

"Okay, let's go."

"What'd you do?" Casey asked.

"I rescheduled your appointment, _and_," Kelly held a few cards in his hand, "I got a few referrals to other doctors if you'd rather do that."

Casey took the cards and noticed the names on them were all male doctors.

"Okay?" Severide asked.

"I guess so," Casey sighed as he stuck them in his pocket.

* * *

The days passed fairly but the nights were still hard. Sometimes Kelly stayed with Casey, sometimes Casey went to him in the middle of the night, a few times Casey suggested they switch and he take the couch and give Kelly a break, but Kelly could hear him pacing around the living room all night. Some nights he slept, some nights he woke up screaming from nightmares and flashbacks, some nights he didn't sleep at all. Usually on those nights Kelly sat up with him and if Casey wasn't up to talking, they passed the time watching TV. In the middle of the night there wasn't much on besides mindless garbage, but it beat the alternative of darkness and silence.

On one such night they'd scrolled through the channels and found a classic TV network and tuned in to an all night marathon of "The Munsters", after two hours of it Severide became aware of a head propped against his shoulder and he realized Casey was on the verge of falling asleep. And while he would've liked nothing better than just let him, there was something he needed to get off his chest and he decided to do it before morning.

"Casey," he said, and watched as the blonde man opened his eyes and sat up straight.

"Sorry, Kelly."

"Casey...I'm going to be going back to 51 soon."

Casey looked at him and didn't say anything at first, then finally, "Okay..."

Kelly wasn't sure what he was expecting Casey's response to be, but that wasn't it, and his confusion must've been obvious.

"I appreciate you taking off as long as you have, but come on, Kelly, you have to know by now I'm not going to do anything stupid just because you're not here to watch me."

"It's not that," Kelly shook his head, "I just-"

"I _do_ know how to be by myself, you know."

"I know," Kelly reluctantly responded, "it's just that you haven't been in so long and..."

Casey looked at him and seemed to get what Kelly was trying to say. It had been _years_ since he'd actually been on his own, even for just three days a week.

"I'll be fine, Kelly," Casey insisted.

"I know...I just worry about you."

For some reason, that made Casey smile.

"I appreciate your concern...I can't tell you not to worry...just because I know you will anyway, but I'll be okay."

"I know, and I'm glad to hear it," Severide told him.

That was the end of the conversation and the two felt like a weight had been lifted off of them. Before the night was over the otherwise quiet apartment was filled with hysterical laughter from the two firemen as they watched Herman Munster get a job in a Chinese laundry.

* * *

"Welcome back, Kelly," Boden greeted Severide his first day back on shift. "How's Casey doing?"

"Uh, he's staying with me for the time being. The doctor said his resistance is still low from the flu and he advised Casey to stay off shift at least a couple more weeks to make sure he's fully recovered," Kelly lied through his teeth like a professional.

"That's gotta be rough on him," Herrmann said, "how's he adapting to...you know, life without Gabby?"

That seemed to be the real question on everyone's minds.

Kelly shrugged and said simply, "Best that he can. You know how he does, tries to act like he's fine."

There was a collective response of agreement from the others on the apparatus floor, but after that nobody knew what to say.

"Come on, Severide," Herrmann finally broke the silence since they still had a job to do and had to get ready for it, "we'll introduce you to the new paramedic."


	9. Chapter 9

Casey sat on the couch in Kelly's apartment eating and flipping through the channels. He'd just swallowed a piece of toast when he heard a knock at the door. Knowing that Kelly wasn't expecting anyone, he turned the TV off and went to see what was going on.

He was definitely surprised.

"Voight!" Casey felt his eyes bulge at the sight of the sergeant standing on the stoop.

"Hey Matt," Hank said in what Casey guessed was Voight's casual manner, "How've you been?"

"Uh...fine, what're you doing here?" Casey asked.

"I came to see how you were doing," Voight said.

"Why?"

Voight looked at him.

"Because I know this is a difficult time for you," he answered.

"That's an understatement," Casey replied.

It was a few seconds before Casey had the presence of mind to hold the door open, "Sorry, come in."

"Where's Severide?" Hank asked as he stepped in to the apartment.

"On shift." Casey looked at the cop and asked him, "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure."

"You...you know what happened, don't you?"

Voight nodded. "I'm sorry, Matt."

"Who else knows? Tell me the truth."

"My guys, Severide, that's it."

"No one else?" Casey asked, fearing to hope.

"Trudy knows, but she's not going to tell Randy, your guys aren't going to find out from my guys, Matt, I can promise you that," Voight told him.

"Thanks," Casey said glumly.

Suddenly he couldn't stop fidgeting, he alternated between looking at Voight, or the floor, or around the room, trying to get up the nerve to say what was on his mind.

"Uh...Voight?"

"Yeah, Casey?"

Before Casey even realized what he was doing, he reached over and threw his arms around Voight and got out a very emotional, "Thank you..."

"For what?" Voight asked.

Casey took in a ragged breath and answered, "For staying with me at the hospital...I thought I was going to die, I _wanted_ to die...I...when you took Kelly away, I _knew_ what was going to happen, I _knew_ you'd found out and were going to tell him."

"I figured," Voight said as he locked an arm around Casey's back to physically support the younger man, "I could tell you were terrified of something."

"I just knew when he came back...he'd hate me for what I _let_ happen."

"We didn't know at the time what was going on, we found Gabby's phone and that filled in the blanks. He took it pretty hard."

Casey groaned.

"You got a good friend there, Casey."

Casey nodded and smiled in spite of himself. "I know." He pulled back and told Voight, "That's why I was scared to death when he left with you. I figured everything would go right out the window when he found out."

"He knows what happened to you wasn't your fault, Matt."

"He's told me," Casey said. "I've gone over the whole thing so many times since that night...how could I have been so stupid to let Gabby do that to me? I know better."

"Can you tell me when it all started?" Voight asked.

Casey sighed and ran his hands over his face. "I have to talk to you _too_ about it now?"

Voight's face gave nothing away, nor did the tone of his voice, but he explained to Matt, "There's a chance Gabby was getting some of her stuff from other paramedics dealing meds out of their ambos and onto the streets, it's a possible drug ring we're investigating, so anything you can tell me would help a lot. If there are more people doing this, we gotta find out who and where they are so we can stop them."

Casey visibly cringed as he took this in. He sighed and gestured to the couch, "Okay...I'll...see what I can do..."

"I can appreciate how hard this is for you, Casey," Voight told him. "Just tell me what you can."

* * *

"That's the whole story as far as I can remember," Casey wrapped it up about an hour later. "You don't have to say it, I know I was an idiot."

Voight had listened to all the gory details, never interrupted, had not said a word. Now it was his turn to speak.

"Matt, Gabby was drugging you before you were even aware of it, you have no way of knowing what you were already on, how much of it, for how long, or if you were even in your right mind at the time."

Casey thought about that and sighed. "That would explain a few things." He wrapped his arms around himself and got out a weak laugh as he said, "Doesn't say much when the reason I thought I was out of my mind with love is because I was strung out and didn't know it."

"Gabby had you on more drugs than you knew about, and she was giving them to you more often than you knew about," Voight told him. "It's a miracle you're still alive, Casey."

"I know...doesn't feel like one though." Casey paused before he asked Voight, "Do I really have to go see a therapist and tell all this to someone else _again_?"

"You told me, you told Severide, I know that hasn't made it any easier, but what scares you about telling someone who has no personal stake in the matter?" Voight asked.

"I tried to go once last week, I couldn't...I just couldn't go in there and tell someone else what had happened."

"Anybody who's ever had to go to therapy understands that perfectly," Voight told him, "But Casey, the doc's there to help you, not judge you, and you may not believe it but they've easily seen people in far worse situations than you."

Casey looked at him and asked, "Do you think I need to see a shrink?"

"I'm not the best person to ask, Matt," Voight responded, "but I'll tell you this. If it had been Erin, I'd drag her to one kicking and screaming the whole way."

Casey laughed at his comment. Then he sighed and asked, "Does Antonio know?"

Voight nodded melancholically, "I told him. I figured he'd had enough time to mourn his sister that he should know the truth."

Casey grimaced. "Guess that settles it, he's not going to want to see me again."

"Not for a while," Voight answered. "Not until he can get his head wrapped around what happened. His issue isn't with you, Casey, it's that this was his little sister that did this, and he can't reconcile that fact with the woman he thought he knew. Until he _can_ come to terms with what happened, I've taken his badge, I can't have him working under me for the time being with this eating him up. And him I _did_ drag to a therapist kicking and screaming so he _can_ deal with it."

That revelation made the corners of Casey's mouth turn upward in something almost resembling a smile.

"Thanks for stopping by, Hank, I really _do_ appreciate it."

"No problem, Casey," Voight replied as he stood up. "Good to see you're doing so well."

"Hank," Casey thought of something and sheepishly told him, "I'm sorry I threw up on you."

That comment drew a loud sudden laugh from the Intelligence sergeant, who responded, "Don't worry about it, Casey, this line of work, we _all_ get puked on at some time."

"Don't I know it? ...Hank," Casey called to the cop just as he reached the door. Hesitantly he forced himself to ask the question weighing heavily on his mind.

"If I would've come to you, and told you what was going on...would you have believed me?"

Voight looked at him for a minute and finally answered, "Guys don't make false rape claims against their wives. Yeah, I'd believe you, and I would've come here, and searched the apartment, found the drugs, and the videos, and I would've locked Gabby up, her brother working for me be damned."

Casey squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. After the fact it all seemed so simple. Why hadn't he just done it when he had the chance? Why...

"Hey," Casey felt a set of hands on his shoulders, he opened his eyes and saw Voight standing right in front of him, "it's over, Casey. That's what you got to remember, it's over. You're gonna be alright."

* * *

Severide was having a hell of a time balancing his focus on the job and the inevitable inability to not worry about what Casey was doing home by himself. He'd managed to keep his head on the call they just returned from, as he wrote up his incident report he found his attention wavering again. the knock on his door brought him back to the here and now. He turned in his chair to see who it was, and he felt his eyes bug out.

"Voight," he said in surprise as the cop entered his quarters. "What're you doing here?"

"Heard you were back on the job, how's Casey holding up?" Voight asked as he closed the door behind him.

It took Kelly a few seconds to recover from his shock and he answered, "Fine...what're you doing here?"

"Thought you might like an update," Hank answered.

"On what?"

"We've gotten the names of two paramedics from neighboring ambo companies we think are dealing their inventory to people on the street, could be how Gabby got some of the drugs she was slipping Matt, kept her off the radar."

Kelly tried to take that information in but he felt like something was missing.

"So now what?" he asked.

"We're going to set up a buy with them and bust their asses," Hank answered. "These people are no different than the dealers on the street corners, and we are gonna take them out."

Kelly nodded, "I guess that's something." He tapped his pen against the desktop and said to Voight, "Can I ask you a question? Were we all blind to what was going on, or just stupid? How did we miss this? I mean...what would possess Gabby to do what she did?"

"There's no easy answer to that, Kelly. It's the same with a lot of professions, people take advantage of the position their job gives them, to get away with anything that comes to mind."

Kelly shot a knowing glance at him and responded, "Guess I asked the right person on that one."

"I crossed a line to try and save my son, don't even think of putting me in the same boat as that woman," Voight warned him.

"Sorry...I just...I can't figure this out, was Gabby _always_ like this and we just couldn't see it? Or did something _make_ her the way she was?"

Voight shook his head, "Asking the wrong person, I just bust them, I don't diagnose them."

"There had to be something, why couldn't we see what was happening?' Kelly asked.

"Because neither of them _wanted_ anyone to see what was happening," Voight answered. "Gabby was good at covering her tracks, Casey is good at shutting everybody out when something's wrong."

"Yeah but we can still tell when something _is_ wrong," Severide responded.

Voight calmly pointed out, "This hurt him worse than anything before in his life, it makes sense he went to greater measures to hide it. What his own wife put him through, _nobody_ should have to live with betrayal like that."

Kelly couldn't bring himself to form any words to respond, but he agreed.


	10. Chapter 10

To avoid a repeat of last time, Severide managed to talk Casey into making an appointment with a different therapist, and he hoped seeing a man this time made it easier for Casey. They pulled up to the office building and started up towards the door when Casey stopped.

Kelly reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, "Come on, Casey, you got this."

"I can't do it, Kelly," Matt responded, "I thought I could...I can't..."

Kelly wracked his brain trying to come up with a solution.

"Would it be easier if I went in with you?" he asked. Casey turned and stared at him. "You know, sat in on the session, would that help?"

"I...don't know..."

"Come on, Casey. How about this, I'll go in with you and if you change your mind, I'll sit it out in the waiting room, I'll be right there if you need me, would that work?"

Casey felt his chest tightening and thought he was going to start hyperventilating. "I don't know...I don't want to do this."

"I know, I know, but it's not going to get any easier...we're already here, I'm right here...you'll be fine."

"What if I can't do it?" The fear was present in Casey's voice. "What if I get in there and I _still_ can't talk about it?"

"Probably wouldn't be the first time that's ever happened," Kelly replied. "That's why they have more than one session."

Casey felt something, it was a hand squeezing his hand, but he couldn't move his neck to look down and see it, he felt just about paralyzed with terror at what he was about to do.

Kelly looked him in the eyes and told him, "I know you can do this, Casey."

Casey closed his eyes and breathed heavily in and out for several seconds before he wrenched his eyes open again and said in a tone bordering panic, "Okay...let's get this over with."

Kelly managed to keep a reassuring smile on his face, to cover the fact Casey was squeezing his own hand so hard he was about to lose all feeling in it, and didn't even realize he was doing it.

"It'll be alright," he told his friend.

* * *

Casey felt like all the bones in his body had turned to jelly. He lay on his side curled up in a ball on the couch, hearing a pained moan coming from his throat, barely even feeling the strength to keep his eyes open. He felt Severide's knee under his cheek and felt the Squad lieutenant's hand rub up to his shoulder and down to his elbow and up again in a consoling manner.

Kelly _had_ sat in with Casey in his therapy session, and they had actually gotten through the whole session, only half of it Casey had been able to talk during, and though the psychiatrist hadn't been particularly pushy with his questions, it was obvious from watching Casey that it took a lot out of him just to answer at all. He'd held himself together long enough for them to get out of there, then promptly fell apart once they got in the apartment, and he hadn't been able to pull himself back together since.

Severide spoke to him quietly. "I know you didn't want to do it, Matt, but I'm proud of you, I know how hard it was, and the worst of it's over now, now you know what to expect when you go back."

Casey groaned even louder as he thought about having to go back and go through it all again.

Severide's hand moved from his arm up to his head and stroked over the top of it.

"Hey, hey," Kelly practically whispered to him. Casey didn't open his eyes but he was listening. "I love you, Casey."

He opened his eyes halfway and looked up towards him. He saw Severide's hand held down to him, he reached and grabbed it in his own like a lifeline.

"I love you too." His first words since they'd left the therapist's office.

Kelly's hand disappeared from his grasp, he felt it on his arm again, squeezing it reassuringly.

"You're okay, just take it easy."

* * *

Kelly hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep but as he opened his eyes he realized the weight of Casey's head was no longer pressing on his knee. He sat up straighter and saw he was the only one on the couch, Casey wasn't anywhere to be seen. He looked at the clock and realized he'd slept over an hour, he got up and made his way through the apartment looking for the Truck lieutenant. He thought he was hearing things, but it clicked that he was hearing the water in the bathroom running.

"Casey?" Kelly stood against the bathroom door and listened. He could hear the shower running but nothing else. He knocked on the door and slowly opened it.

"Casey?"

"I'll be out in a minute," he heard from the other side of the curtain.

Kelly felt his eyes widen, but he just responded, "Take your time," and pulled the door shut behind him.

A few minutes later Casey emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked notably better.

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah," Casey nodded as he headed towards the bedroom, "Sorry about earlier."

"Hey, I think you did very well given you stayed the whole session and you didn't try to kill the doctor."

Casey didn't laugh at his joke. Instead he got out a change of clothes and told Kelly, "I...I'm thinking about..._not_ going back to my place, but I'm going to start looking for another apartment."

Kelly felt like his stomach dropped.

"I told you you can stay here as long as you want."

"I know...and I appreciate it...but this isn't you, Kelly...we both need to try and get our lives back together."

Severide had no idea how to respond to that.

"And..." Casey took in a breath, "I'm thinking about going back to work soon. I'm going stir crazy sitting around here all day, I need something to do. I _know_ it's not going to be easy, but I'm still a firefighter, Kelly, I have to come back."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that either, except to tell him, "Everybody's been asking about you, I know they're anxious to have you back."

"And you?" Casey asked.

"Me?" Kelly wasn't even sure what the question was. "Casey, all I've _wanted_ is for you to come back."

Matt slowly nodded. "Thank you."

"I'll...I'll leave you alone," Kelly said as he backed out of the room and pulled the door shut so Casey would get dressed.

* * *

Casey might've been looking for a new place to stay but the search wasn't a quick one. He was still staying with Severide a month later, and one particular night found the two lieutenants on the couch in Severide's living room, Casey on his knees and just about to topple over on Severide as the two held on to each other and whooped victoriously as they watched TV.

"Finally, the first Super Bowl in years that didn't suck," Casey said as the excitement finally died down.

Kelly laughed as he finally let go of Casey and remarked, "That was a great game." It had been an intense, entertaining, roller coaster three and a half hours, and Kelly was very thankful that he got to experience it with his best friend and not each to their own apartments miles away from each other.

Casey finally got off his knees and sat back down beside him and said, "Thanks for letting me stay here while I look for a new place."

"Hey, I'm glad to have you here...it's definitely a lot more fun having someone else around," Kelly told him.

"And it definitely helps having someone to come home to after shift," Casey said distantly.

He'd gone back to work at 51 three weeks earlier, but the adjustment had been hard and he'd only managed to put in two shifts each week so far. Boden had been very understanding for not knowing any of the real details, and had Herrmann fill in for him one shift each week. He'd also gone back to therapy, and after the first few times was actually able to speak with the doctor for the full session and Severide's presence was no longer needed for him to be able to stay in the room. It was a slow, tedious process, but he kept at it. Everybody at 51 had been so supportive when he returned, and things were slowly adapting into a new kind of normal, but Casey still wasn't back up to full steam yet and Severide knew it. But he was getting there, and Kelly hoped that one day he'd be back at 100 percent.

Kelly smiled at him and replied, "Hey the feeling's mutual."

A couple hours later they were both worn out and ready to call it a night. Severide headed to the bedroom, then looked back and saw Casey making up the couch and he called over to him, "Hey, get in here."

Casey turned to him with a confused look on his face.

"Not the first time we've slept in the same bed, come on," Kelly nodded his head towards the bedroom.

Casey didn't get it, but he followed after Severide. "Okay."

Most nights Casey preferred to sleep alone but every so often he wound up climbing into bed or onto the couch with Kelly, depending on what the sleeping arrangements were, and they still changed almost every day.

Casey stepped lightly over to his side of the bed, as if he was intruding, and crawled under the covers without a word.

"Goodnight, buddy," Kelly turned off the light and hunkered down under the covers on his side.

"Goodnight."

* * *

Two weeks later Casey found a new apartment to move into. Kelly had gone with him back to his place, helped him load up his stuff and take it over to the new apartment, helped him unload everything and settle in, and stayed until 9 that night. Almost reluctantly, Kelly finally left, but told Casey to call him if he needed anything. Casey promised he would, but he didn't.

Life slowly moved back towards normal after that. Casey kept attending therapy and his doctor said he was making tremendous progress, Matt finally returned to 51 'full-time' all three shifts a week, started interacting with the guys off the job as well. Kelly kept enough of an eye on him that he knew for a fact Casey wasn't seeing anyone yet, dating seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind, not that Severide was too surprised by it, and he wouldn't be surprised if it was a few months before Casey even considered the possibility. Still nobody at 51 had any idea what had really happened, and Casey didn't seem to be in any hurry to tell them the truth, Kelly had to respect his wishes, but knowing what he knew and going along with such a blatant charade was enough most days to nearly drive him crazy. Off shift he tried to keep in touch with Casey since he knew the Truck lieutenant's nights were eerily empty now. At any other time he'd suggest they go clubbing to try and pick up women, but he knew that was out of the question. Once in a while they went out to a hockey game, sometimes for a change of scenery they went to a bar that Severide knew for some different atmosphere while they drank themselves into oblivion. A couple times they went out to the movies, but most of their nights together were spent at each other's apartments watching TV on the couch.

Months passed, and even though Kelly knew that Casey was getting better, he couldn't help but feel that Matt was still depressed, and no surprise, he himself felt thoroughly depressed, despite his constant efforts to help perk up his best friend. Kelly started to think that they might both need a change of scenery. It was about time for one of his trips out to Las Vegas just to break loose and shake off the cobwebs, he'd decided in a couple weeks he'd ask Casey if he wanted to go with him. He thought getting out of Chicago for a while would do both of them some good.

* * *

Then one day Casey was gone. Just gone. His apartment had been locked up, everything was still inside, his truck was still parked outside, everything of his was still there, the only thing missing was Casey. Kelly had been the one to make the discovery, and he had no idea what had happened. Every possible worst case scenario was running through his mind, but he had enough sense to speak with the landlord first. The man told Kelly that two days ago Casey had given him six months' advance on the rent and asked him to keep the place as it was. Kelly sincerely hoped that Casey had meant it, and that that meant that he would be back, but where had he gone? The landlord didn't know, Casey had just told him he was leaving for a while and wasn't sure when he'd be back.

24 hours after Kelly discovered Casey missing, everybody at 51 had received a group text from Matt saying he was fine, apologizing for worrying them, and not to worry about him, he was taking some time off to come to terms with everything that had happened over the months. Nobody could help being worried or concerned, but they decided Casey knew what he was doing.

Then that night, Kelly had gotten a lone text from Casey, no explanation for why he'd disappeared on them, no explanation for anything, just a short message permitting him to tell everyone at 51 the truth about what happened with Gabby. Not even an apology, though Kelly wasn't really expecting one, for leaving this up to him when Casey wasn't there to deal with any of it himself. In truth, he guessed he couldn't blame Matt for hauling ass before asking this favor of him. Shoe on the other foot, he definitely wouldn't want to be present for it. He still wasn't sure what was going on, he didn't know what Casey was doing, what the plan was, if he had a plan, where he'd gone, he just laid awake in his bed that night praying heavily that Casey wasn't going to do anything drastic, wherever he was.

Severide had never stopped to wonder what 51 would be like actually without Casey, what life in general would be like without him to see, to talk to, to hang out with. The first week he felt like he couldn't even breathe, he tried contacting Casey but there was no response, he felt like his best friend truly had disappeared and was gone forever, and he'd already known that feeling twice before, it made him sick now.

The next shift, Kelly braced himself for what was to come, and got everyone's attention and finally told them the real story of what happened when Gabby died. Everybody was shocked, but nobody dared call Severide a liar, everybody knew he had no reason to. It hadn't been easy to finally tell them the truth, and Kelly understood now why Casey didn't want them to know, even Boden was visibly sickened by this discovery. The next couple shifts were passed in largely awkward silences among the firefighters and everybody processed this new information about their lieutenant, their former PIC, and the two's whole relationship.

The week after that, Kelly looked around one day and realized in horror that they were actually adapting to life without Casey, and while the logical part of him knew life had to go on whether he was there or not, it scared the hell out of him because it felt like they were forgetting about him, as if he'd never even existed. As much as he hated it, he himself found it easier to get through the day not thinking about Casey, not wondering where he was or if he was okay, or even if he was still alive. At night, always at night it came back, that dreaded fear, that they'd never hear from him again, or worse, that one day he'd get that inevitable phone call that they'd found a body with Casey's ID and needed someone to come down and identify it. Those thoughts kept him up at night, but he was able to put them away throughout the day, show up for shift and do his job. To avoid thinking about it he started taking extra shifts during the weeks. He lived for the unpredictability of the nights at 51, if calls came in all night, so much the better. He put off sleep until he didn't have a choice, always scared before he closed his eyes that the phone would ring, and always scared the next morning when he opened his eyes that there had been no call.


	11. Chapter 11

2 months later-

"Hi, Gabby," the voice weakly croaked past the pale lips of the blonde man who laid a bouquet of flowers on the grave, propped against the stone.

Casey had crouched down in front of the tomb so he could read the epitaph, there were no words for how different it was seeing it in person. The black sunglasses he wore tinted the stone but he could still make out the engraving.

The day had certainly fit the atmosphere, dark and dreary, rain threatening to pour down any minute, there were still a few hours left in the day but the sky was so black it looked like nightfall already.

He didn't know how long he'd actually been at the cemetery, when he first came he took solace in losing himself among the tombstones and being alone, isolated from the entire outside world. Now, without even standing up or turning around, he sensed a presence nearby watching him.

"How'd you know I was here?" he asked.

Severide made his way down the rows and called over to the Truck lieutenant, "I know_ you_."

It was a year to the day since Gabby's death. Kelly had hoped that if anything could make Casey come back to Chicago, this would be it, he'd staked out the grave all day but had made sure Casey wouldn't see him when and if he came. Kelly could never explain to anyone how grateful he was that Matt had shown up for it.

Casey stood up and turned to face the Squad lieutenant. Being gone for two months, Kelly wasn't sure what to expect when Casey finally resurfaced, and he couldn't completely hide his surprise at the change in Matt's appearance. He was a shade paler than he had been when Kelly last saw him, the black shades concealed his eyes completely, and Severide guessed that Casey had been eating regularly but he couldn't tell because the bulky black coat Casey wore that went down to his knees practically engulfed his whole form. If the situation wasn't so serious, he might've made a joke about Casey being too old to suddenly become a goth.

The two men stood a good 10 feet from each other and just looked at one another, and for a moment, neither could move, or speak.

Finally Kelly took the first step literally and figuratively and asked as he approached the blonde man, "You okay?"

Casey nodded once, almost mechanically.

Kelly enclosed the space between them and reached his arms around Casey and hugged him, desperate to actually feel that it was real and he was really there. Through the coat, he felt about the same.

"We were all worried about you, man," Kelly told him.

He was surprised when he actually felt Casey's arms around him in return. "I told you not to."

"I know." Kelly pulled back and got a look at him up close and personal, despite the situation he couldn't resist a small laugh and told Casey, "You look like Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami."

The corners of Casey's mouth turned up in an attempt at a smile, a grunt of a laugh escaped his lips. "I can think of worse things to look like."

Suddenly being so close to Casey after not knowing where he was or even if he was still alive for so long, Kelly felt scared to let the man out of his sight, his reach, and he hugged him again, needing to know that this was real, and he wasn't about to just wake up getting a call from the police.

"Where'd you go, man?" Kelly asked him as he held tightly to the blonde man.

Casey weakly shook his head and responded, "Just been around...I had to get away for a while."

Kelly felt his breath shaking as he tightened his grip impossibly moreso on the other man. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't want you trying to stop me," Casey answered simply. He tried to pull back, and asked Severide, "You told them?"

"You told me to."

"I know...you did?"

Kelly nodded anxiously.

There was a pause as Casey took that in. "How'd everybody take the news?"

"Hard," Kelly answered. "But they know...they know it wasn't anything you did. Casey, everybody's been worried about you..." he knew it wasn't the right time or place but he couldn't stop himself, "I didn't know if you were dead or alive."

"I'm sorry," Casey responded in an emotionally distant tone, almost as if it were an afterthought.

Kelly looked at him. "But you're alright?"

Casey nodded, "Yeah. I..." he turned back towards the grave. "I'd like to stay a minute."

"Sure," Kelly backed off.

Casey crouched back down to look at the tombstone.

"I still love her," Casey admitted to Kelly, who stood behind him and didn't say anything. "Even with everything she did to me, I still love her."

Kelly didn't know what to say.

"It's taken me a while to figure that out," Casey told him. "I tried to hate her for what she did...I just couldn't."

Kelly stepped over towards his friend and crouched down beside him and said, "I guess that's just natural."

Casey turned to him and asked, no emotions readable on his face, "You think she ever loved me, really?"

Kelly paused as he thought about it, and shrugged, "I don't know. I guess in some way...she must've thought she did."

"I loved her," Casey turned back to the stone, "but she hurt me so many times, in so many ways I couldn't even imagine being possible...I just don't get it."

"Probably none of us ever will," Kelly replied.

"I forgive her," Casey told him. "If I'm ever going to get past this, I have to."

Kelly struggled to manage a small smile as he reached over and rubbed Casey's back. "You're a better man than me."

"It's not for her," Casey said. "I'm never going to move on if I keep obsessing over what happened, it's letting her keep a hold on me." He took in a breath, sighed, and told Kelly, "So I'm letting go of her."

Kelly had a good idea that Casey wasn't finished there and told him, "I'll give you a minute," and headed towards the gate.

He turned back once and saw Casey crouched down in front of the grave again, and he could hear Casey talking, but his voice was too low to make out any of the words. Kelly stood outside the gate and waited, Casey stayed for a few minutes, then as he stood up, Severide would swear he saw Matt actually hugging the tombstone for a second before he turned and walked way.

The man walking towards him looked like a stranger. Casey seldom ever wore sunglasses, even in the dead of summer, even out on Boden's boat, he never wore them, the clothes he normally wore were gone and in their place was a black pair of boots, black jeans, and a coat that nearly swallowed him, all of which starkly contrasted with his pale complexion. Kelly was almost scared to ask what he had been through the past two months.

The air was damp now, the sky was even blacker, the rain was definitely coming, it was just a matter of when, would they still be here or on the road when it happened? Maybe Casey didn't know it, but the weather in Chicago had largely been just like this the whole time he was gone, a perfect fit, Severide thought, to match everybody's moods with their lieutenant missing.

Casey exited the cemetery, and walked over to Kelly, and didn't say anything at first...then he said to the Squad lieutenant, "Kelly...can I come back with you? Just for the night," he added quickly. "Just to get through tonight." The date and all the connections to it had definitely not been lost on Casey during the time he'd been gone.

Kelly gripped Casey's shoulders, looked him in the eyes and told him, "Casey, you can stay with me as long as you want, you know that."

Nothing shone through from the black lenses staring back at him.

"Just for tonight," Casey insisted. "I don't think I can be alone right now."

Kelly pulled the other man against him and hugged him. "You won't be. I promise. Come on, let's go."

* * *

"That was a good dinner, thanks," Casey said as they sat down on the couch, his voice devoid of almost all emotions.

"Don't mention it."

Outside the rain was beating down on the city and the night air had gotten cold, inside the apartment it was dry and warm and brightly lit. It was only now that the meal was over and they were settled for the night, that Casey actually took off his sunglasses. Kelly looked at him, trying not to stare, but he couldn't help noticing the blue eyes looking older and tired, and he noticed the new lines around Casey's eyes, it was like he'd aged 5 years in the 2 months he'd been gone. He'd shed his coat upon entering the apartment and Kelly also noticed that he had in fact lost some weight, not much but enough to notice, enough to be concerned about his well being.

"Casey...what're your plans for the immediate future?" Kelly asked.

Casey blinked. "Depends what you mean by immediate...you mean in the next five minutes, or two hours from now, or tomorrow, or next week?"

"Are you back?" Kelly asked. "I mean...are you really back?"

Casey inhaled, then sighed, "I really didn't mean to worry you guys...I just thought I'd lose my mind if I stayed here any longer."

"Where'd you go?" Kelly wasn't sure if he should actually ask, but after what they'd been put through, he felt he had a right to know.

"Nowhere in particular, just got out of here for a while," Casey answered as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I know that doesn't explain anything, I'm sorry...just kind of floated around...I went to see my mom."

Kelly wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he went with the first question in his head. "How's she doing?"

"She's good...good...I told her what happened," Casey told him.

Kelly blinked. "You...told, your _mom_?"

"I thought if anybody would understand..." Casey pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a second. "Anyway, it's not like our relationship's that great, I wasn't risking upsetting too much."

There was silence as Kelly tried to process that. "And how...did she take the news?"

"She cried," Casey answered. "We both sat up all night crying...it was the first time she held me all night since I was 8 and had the flu."

Kelly didn't have any idea how to respond, so he opted to say nothing, and hoped Casey wouldn't misinterpret it.

Casey got out a small sound that might've been a laugh, but there was no humor to it. "Pretty bad when the only thing that can bond a mother and her child is being abused by the people they loved." He turned to Kelly, his eyes shining with tears that had started to develop but didn't threaten to spill over, not yet anyway. "But you know something? I think it actually helped...I think being able to confide in her of all people...actually did me some good."

"Well I'm glad to hear it," Kelly finally said.

"I think I'm finally, _really_ coming to terms with everything," Casey told him. "I think...I think I'm going to be alright now."

Kelly felt his own eyes stinging as he heard this admission.

"I'm glad you're back, Matt."

"I'm glad to be back, I missed you, I missed everyone at 51," Casey told him. "Hey, thanks for helping me get through this year."

Kelly managed a smile as he replied, "That's what I'm here for. Back to the original question, any plans for the immediate future?"

"Why?" Casey asked.

"It _has_ been a bad year, and honestly, the weather alone has been enough the last few months to depress anybody. Before you left I was going to ask you if you wanted to go with me on a trip."

"What trip? Where?"

"Well I did some checking," Kelly leaned back against the couch, "and it turns out the weather in Myrtle Beach is very good right now."

"Myrtle Beach?" Casey repeated, then thought of something. "Doesn't Voight have a condo down there?"

"Yeah, but I thought that'd be too weird, but I found some hotels near the beach that would be great to stay at."

"I've never been there," Casey said.

"Neither have I, but it's 85 and sunny there, and that's _got_ to beat the unending rain and cold here," Severide responded.

"What'd you do, already make a reservation?"

"No...I wanted to be sure you were actually coming back," Kelly admitted.

Casey looked straight ahead and nervously licked his lips as he took that in.

"I really didn't mean to worry everybody," he told Severide.

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"Uh...yeah, I'd...I'll go with you, when?" Casey asked.

"Figure some time next week?"

Casey nodded. "That should be plenty of time for me to get everything in order."

"Great, I'll get our rooms booked."

"Uh...Kelly..." Casey glanced around the living room, "do you mind if...would you...I mean..." he sucked in an uneasy breath and blurted out, "Would you stay out here with me tonight?"

Kelly looked at his friend, and understood what it had taken for Casey to even ask that question.

"Of course I will," he answered simply.

* * *

Kelly felt a weight pressing against him, he opened his eyes and saw he'd fallen asleep on the couch and Casey was laying on him, also asleep, his legs pressed against Kelly's legs, his head using Kelly's chest for a pillow. He wasn't sure how they'd wound up like that, the last thing he remembered was the two of them watching TV and talking, catching up on what had been going on during Casey's absence, and they had both been sitting up at the time.

One year. One whole year since Gabby had been killed, and Kelly found out the truth of what his best friend had been going through for months, suffering in silence. Two months since he'd lost his best friend and worried he'd never see him, least of all alive, again.

Outside Kelly could hear the rain tapping against the window, he tried to shut it out of his mind and instead focus on the two of them there in his apartment were it was warm, the lights were still on, and now that Casey was back and with him, it just felt like he could shut the rest of the world out for a little while, and take some comfort at having Casey back in his life, in his apartment, and despite the bumps he'd had already since being back, genuinely seemed to be doing alright.

For a moment, all the anxiety and fear of the last two months came flooding back, it almost seemed too much to hope for, that Casey was actually back in Chicago, actually right here with him. Despite the sheer weight of the man pressing against him, Kelly still needed reassurance that this was real and Matt was there. He moved an arm out from under the Truck lieutenant and draped it over his chest, feeling the rhythmic movements as it went up and down and the slow steady pulsing of his heart.

Casey's breath caught in his throat and he opened his eyes and craned his head back. "Kelly?"

"Just me, buddy, go back to sleep."

Casey certainly didn't need to be told twice. But he looked behind him and saw Kelly using his free arm to reach for the light to shut it off.

"Kelly," he said suddenly, "...can you leave it on, please?"

Kelly drew his hand back. "Sure." He reached over and grabbed the heavy blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it down on both of them and got it smoothed out over them.

"Better?" he asked.

Casey tiredly nodded, "Yeah, thanks."

"No problem." Kelly replaced his arm across Casey's chest and told him, "I got you, Casey, go back to sleep."

Casey inhaled, yawned, and murmured as he closed his eyes, "Thanks, Kelly."


	12. Chapter 12

Casey sighed contentedly as he held his arms out at his sides and fell back into the waves washing in to the surf. Up on the beach he could hear Severide laughing and yelling that he should've taken his sunglasses off before getting in the water. He raised his head and was just able to see Kelly sitting on a towel, his hair spiked from the water, a pair of black shades concealing his eyes, his already tanned skin taking on a pinkish hue, and his feet a grayish brown from the sand sticking to his skin, the sun was bright and hot and the glare it cast on the water was almost blinding. Casey let the seawater wash over him and enjoyed the contrast of the hot sun and the refreshing water. Definitely _not_ the weather he'd be putting up with back home in Chicago.

They'd arrived in South Carolina that morning. They'd taken a cab to the hotel Severide had made their reservation at which was mere minutes away from the beach and many of the attractions. On the way they'd gotten a brief glimpse of their vacation destination for the next week, they got checked in, where they'd found out there'd been a snafu with the reservations and there was only one room available with one bed, which put a slight damper on the mood, until they actually checked into their room and saw it had a queen sized bed, and a couch by the balcony window that looked out to the ocean.

"I think I'm gonna like this vacation," Casey commented as he dropped his bag on the bed and headed over to the balcony. He slid open the glass door and stepped on the balcony and looked at the oceanfront less than a mile away, breathed in the air, then looked down, and got a bird's eye view of how high up their room was.

"Hey," Kelly was behind him, his hand on Casey's arm, "You're not getting scared of heights now, are you?"

"No," Casey stepped back, "just a little lightheaded...definitely doesn't look like any building we ever had to scale that was on fire."

Kelly laughed, "Let's hope not. Come on, let's get changed and hit the beach."

And here they were, and there they'd been for Casey didn't even know how long, and he didn't care. He didn't particularly care for the feeling of sand between his toes but it was definitely worth it to be in the ocean. It was an experience unlike any he'd ever known, and for a brief moment it left him wondering what kind of life he'd been living all those years.

The sand and seaweed and debris of the ocean definitely left you feeling less than clean, but at the same time it felt therapeutic, like a weight had been washed clean off of Casey's shoulders, like here and now he was finally free, of everything, all the past, all the pain, all of it, just gone, just him and Kelly and the sun and surf.

Severide had run in with him in the beginning and they got out far enough from shore to swim around but, ever aware of potential dangers hiding in plain sight, stayed close enough to shore that they'd be able to reach it in the event of a rip tide, and they swam and played in the water like a couple of carefree children. Casey shoved an armful of water in Kelly's face as he emerged, the Squad lieutenant covered his face and took in a startled gasp at the initial contact, then when he realized what it was, he retaliated and the two men hopped through the wet sand throwing water on each other until Kelly finally caught hold of Casey and pinned him in a hold until he surrendered. Finally Severide got tired and headed back for shore to dry out and get some rays, and Casey knew, to keep an eye on him, and though he felt he should be offended by Severide's vigilance, instead he was relieved by the presence, it was reassuring.

"Hey!" Kelly was calling to him from where he sat on a towel and was waving his arms. Casey stood up in the water and stayed there, Severide's body language didn't indicate anything was wrong, so Casey waited to see what it was about.

"Get back here!" Kelly hollered to be heard over the waves crashing. "It's late!"

Casey waded up to the shore and endured the disgusting feeling of wet sand sticking to his feet as he made his way over to where they'd set up camp so to speak, with two towels down and a cooler with a packed lunch. Now that Casey was actually on dry land, his legs were starting to feel weak and his whole body felt shaky.

"You've been out there for almost two hours," Kelly told him, gesturing to the cooler, "Gotta eat sometime."

"Good idea," Casey said as he collapsed on his towel. After taking a minute to recover, he pushed up on his knees, opened the lid of the cooler and took out two of the sandwiches and two bottles of water they'd put on ice to stay cold.

"Hey," Casey said halfway through their lunch. Kelly turned towards him, and though neither could see the other's eyes through their shades, Casey looked at him and told him sincerely, "I really appreciate this, thanks for bringing me."

Kelly smiled at him and told him, "This is just the beginning. Wait'll we hit the casinos at night."

Casey groaned and flopped his head back against the towel he'd rolled up for a pillow. "That's all you think about."

"Not all," Kelly replied.

Casey laughed.

* * *

Kelly felt the wind blowing against his skin, also felt the wind kicking up sand that pelted his skin, he smelled the salt of the seawater, and he felt hot, not just from the sun, there was a large weight pressed against him. He opened his eyes and realized they'd fallen asleep on the beach, and then realized the weight was Casey, who had rolled over in his sleep from his towel and was crushing Kelly's ribs. Severide moved slightly to shift the weight accommodatingly, and draped an arm around Casey's back. He knew he ought to wake him up and they could head back to the hotel, but instead he decided a little more sun wouldn't hurt them.

"Glad you came, buddy," Kelly said as he leaned over and kissed Casey's forehead, which was still shining with residue from the sunblock.

* * *

Kelly looked around the crowded club and tried to see past the flashing colored lights, but he couldn't spot Casey anywhere. He shot a glance to the two women sitting at the bar, he knew that Casey had been eyeing the 30-something blonde but apparently he hadn't gone over to talk to her. He looked around again and saw the doors to the restroom and thought he had the answer. He pushed his way past 20 or 30 drunken clubbers and entered the men's room. It was surprisingly clean, decently lit, and nobody was in there.

"I know you're here," he said, "come on out."

The stall door on the end opened and Casey walked out, looking anxious.

"I know why you're hiding," Kelly said.

"What do you mean?"

"The woman."

"What woman?" Casey asked.

"The one at the bar, the one you've been staring at for 15 minutes," Kelly said, "why don't you just go talk to her?"

"I...can't," Casey said.

"Sure you can, it's easy, you just go up to her and say 'Hi, my name's Matt Casey, what's yours?', what's hard about that?" Kelly asked.

Casey breathed heavily and told him, "This was a mistake...I thought I was ready to start dating again, I thought I could handle this, I can't."

"How do you know?" Kelly asked.

Casey blinked. "Seriously?"

"You didn't even talk to her," Kelly pointed out. "It looks like she's with a friend, we can double up, it wouldn't be as awkward."

Kelly didn't like what he was seeing. This was reminiscent of the same Matt Casey who stood on the sidewalk shaking because he couldn't bring himself to set foot in the psychiatrist's office.

"I just can't do it, Kelly, let's get out of here and go back to the hotel," Casey was begging him.

"Matt, just take it easy. I know you, I watched you looking at her, I know you're interested. We'll go over, we'll talk to them, and if nothing comes of it, we'll leave."

Casey's knees knocked together as if he was trying to force himself to stay upright. "What if something _does_ come of it?"

"Then we'll just see where it goes," Kelly said. "Come on, Matt, this is perfect, nobody here knows us, nobody knows anything, it's a fresh start."

"What if I can't?" Casey asked self consciously. His voice lowered a decibel as he confessed, "Kelly, I haven't...I haven't been with _any_ woman since Gabby died...I don't know if...what if I start to flashback?"

"I think you just have cold feet because you haven't done this for a while," Kelly told him. "We'll talk with them, if you're not comfortable with it, we'll leave, but at least try it and see what happens," Kelly told him.

Casey reluctantly nodded and heaved a few ragged breaths in and out and agreed, "Alright...alright...let's just do this before I lose my nerve."

Kelly clapped a hand on Casey's shoulder and told him, "You got this, buddy."

The two firefighters went back out and the two women were still at the bar, a short haired blonde and a wavy haired redhead, both in their 30s, both dressed similarly in torn jeans and black tank tops.

Severide initiated contact and very quickly the two men joined them at the bar and ordered a round of drinks. The blonde woman's name was Melaina Sarelle and the redhead's name was Phoebe Hamilton, both of them also in town on vacation for the week, they'd arrived the day before and had visited a lot of attractions, and also been hit on by a lot of scuzzy guys most places they went. Casey took that as a hint things weren't going well and got up to leave, but Kelly grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and jerked him back to the bar stool as the conversation continued without missing a beat. After another round of drinks everybody livened up a bit, Casey particularly, and as a new song started the women suggested they dance. Even with what Casey had had to drink, he had the presence of mind to shake his head and decline, "No thanks, I don't think so."

"Come on, Casey," Severide grabbed his shoulder, "what do you have to lose?"

"Hmm, that list _is_ pretty short anymore," Casey thought. He downed another shot and decided, "Okay, let's do this," and just about fell on the floor getting up from the bar stool.

* * *

Back when Severide was attending Casey's therapy sessions with him, one point the therapist had made clear to both of them was that mood swings were a given in light of everything that Casey had been put through, and they should be expected, especially on Severide's part since at the time he was living with Casey and had to put up with them. And the memories of those mood swings came flooding back as Kelly found himself having to physically restrain Casey, who seemed intent on punching holes in all the furniture and walls in their hotel room, lunging from one corner to another, beating his fists against the wall and screaming.

"Casey, Casey calm down," Kelly said as he tightened the hold of his arms wrapped against Casey's chest and arms, "Casey, it's not that bad."

That seemed to draw the fight out of the blonde man, momentarily. "Not-that-bad?" he repeated in disbelief as Kelly let go of him and he was able to turn and face the Squad lieutenant. "Kelly, tonight was the first time I've been out with a woman in _four_ years...and I _blow_ it! And you say it's not-that-bad?"

"You didn't blow it," Kelly told him, "you two had a good time and she liked you."

"And I _blew_ it!" Casey repeated as he turned around and punched the wall again.

"Casey, we spent four hours with those women, how can you say that? _Considering_ it's been four years since you've been on a date with a woman, I'd say things went very well."

"Oh yeah?" Casey bitterly replied as he turned back towards Severide, "If things went _so_ well, why am I spending the night with _you_?"

Kelly scowled at him but let it go because he knew Casey was in an emotionally volatile state right now.

"Casey, I love you, but you have _got_ to calm down before you have a panic attack," Kelly told him. "Just take it easy and breathe."

"Don't tell me what to do."

"Just _breathe_," Kelly repeated, and Casey did, "again," he did, "again...good...now take it easy."

Casey took in a shaky breath and hugged his arms around himself as he groaned, "Something's wrong with me."

"You got nervous, it happens," Kelly replied.

"Oh yeah right," he said dismissively.

"It does."

"Not exactly the voice of experience, are you, Severide?" Casey asked as he paced around the room.

"Casey, stop," Kelly grabbed him by the shoulders, "Your problem is you set your expectations too high, that's all it is."

"Who are you to tell me what-"

"I'm your best friend and I've known you for nearly 20 years, that's who," Kelly told him, "I know you, Casey, I know you don't _do_ one night stands, and I know you don't sleep with a woman on the first date. How long were you seeing Hallie before you two went to bed together? Huh?" He could see some of the anxiety leaving Casey as he started to think about what Kelly was saying. "Matt...what Gabby did to you was inexcusable, and I understand wanting to put all that behind you, and regain a normal life...but this isn't normal for you. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get back in the dating scene, but I think there _is_ a problem with wanting to sleep with a woman that you just met just to prove that you still can. That's not who you are."

"Yeah, I'm not like you," Casey sniped.

Kelly let that one go. "I know you, Matt, in your mind every woman who turns your head is the next potential Mrs. Matt Casey."

"Yeah, and where'd that get me?" he replied.

"I know, it was awful, but that doesn't mean your goals are," Kelly told him. "There's nothing wrong with looking for someone to send the rest of your life with, but you can't expect to figure that out on the first date."

Casey's chest was starting to heave as he dropped his head to his chest and told him, "I just want a normal relationship again, Kelly..."

"I know, and I understand that, buddy, but you're putting too much pressure on yourself," Kelly told him as he rubbed Casey's shoulder consolingly. "Look, think about it like this...you and Melaina had a good time tonight, if you run into her tomorrow you can ask her out again and see where it goes. And if you don't, there are plenty other women in this city that you can meet before you go home. And if none of them work out, the two of us are still going to have a good time here no matter what. Does that make sense?"

Casey sucked in a couple ragged breaths and finally nodded his head.

"_We_ came here to have a good time, that's gonna happen with or without any women," Kelly told him. "Trust me."

Casey raised his head and opened his eyes and looked at him. "I'm sorry, Kelly."

"It's okay," Kelly hugged him, "it's a lot to take in, I know."

Casey locked his arms around Kelly's upper back and said again, "I'm sorry...I know you went to a lot of trouble to make this vacation happen."

"That's not important, I want you to _enjoy_ yourself while we're here," Kelly told him.

"I'm sorry," Casey pressed his face into Kelly's shoulder.

Kelly turned his head and kissed Casey on the cheek. "It's alright, it's been a long day and we're both exhausted, let's get some sleep."

Casey pulled away from him almost reluctantly and went over and climbed in on the left side of the queen sized bed. Kelly watched him get settled under the covers, then went around to the right side.

"Goodnight, buddy."

"Goodnight, Kelly."


	13. Chapter 13

Severide opened his eyes and saw the sunlight starting to come in through the balcony window. He turned over and saw Matt's side of the bed was empty.

"Casey?"

Kelly got out of bed and looked around the room, then he heard the water running in the bathroom.

Kelly looked at the clock and tried to figure why Casey was taking another shower now when they were just going to need another one when they got back from the beach again, then decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to get one himself, since even he wasn't exactly sure what all they'd be doing that day. He got a change of clothes ready, then headed over to the bathroom, opened the door and stuck his head in, "Hey Casey, you gonna be long?"

There was no response.

"Casey!" Kelly called to be heard over the water. Again nothing.

"Casey? You fall asleep in there?" Kelly went over to the shower and yanked back the curtain.

* * *

Casey just reentered the hotel room with a morning paper when he heard a scream coming from the bathroom, and a few seconds later heard the door slam and saw Severide walk out, everything from the top of his head to the bottom of his shirt was dripping wet and he had a long scowl on his face.

Casey took in this sight with a pair of wide eyes and said only, "I guess I should've mentioned we had company."

Not even thinking to be surprised by Casey's sudden presence, Kelly cynically responded, "Yeah that might've been nice, instead I got a naked woman screaming at me trying to ram a bar of soap down my throat." He walked past Casey, then turned on his heel and added as an afterthought, "Didn't see anything, I swear."

"Kelly, right?"

Severide slowly turned his head to the side and looked through the corner of his eye and saw the woman standing in the doorway tying the belt shut on her bathrobe. He turned around and saw Melaina, her blonde hair a shade darker stuck against the sides of her face and her shoulders from the water.

"Your name's Kelly, right?" she repeated.

"Uh...yeah," Severide's brain finally remembered how to make words again, "yeah, that's me."

The blonde woman inhaled and let out a small giggle as she replied, "Sorry about that, you scared the hell out of me."

"Oh well that's..." Kelly turned his head back towards Casey and murmured to him, "Can I speak to you in private?"

Casey looked over Severide's head and called to Melaina, "We'll be back in a minute."

Kelly forcefully walked him over to the bedroom and closed the door.

"What the hell is going on?" Kelly demanded to know. "Where did she come from? What happened last night? Correct me if I'm wrong, last night we went to bed in the same room, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then where'd she come from?" Kelly asked.

"It's not what you think," Casey told him.

Severide had absolutely no idea what to take that to meaning.

"Then explain it to me," he said.

Casey looked at him, and told him, "I woke up, I couldn't get back to sleep, I didn't want to wake you up so I went out. I ran into her down on the fourth floor where the pool is...she and Phoebe are both staying here as well..."

"I didn't know that."

"Neither did I. They're two floors below us," Casey said. "Anyway...we started talking...and we left the hotel and went down to the Boardwalk and..."

Kelly leaned over with widened eyes, not wanting any details to slip past him.

"And what?"

Casey looked at him and recoiled. "And _still_ nothing happened...we went down to the beach and we talked for most of the night...we fell asleep out there, we came back half an hour ago, she forgot her key card and didn't want to wake Phoebe up so she asked if she could get cleaned up here."

Kelly spent a few minutes taking all of that in and finally concluded, "I guess I have to believe you because that's the craziest story I've ever heard."

There was a knock on the bedroom door. "Matt?"

The two men turned towards the voice. "Yeah?"

"I'm leaving now, thanks for letting me use the shower."

"No problem," he called through the door. Once they heard the front door shut, the two men turned back to each other.

"Nothing happened," Casey told him.

"Are you going out with her later?" Kelly asked.

"Yes."

Kelly was beaming from ear to ear. "I told you."

Casey didn't look amused. "I don't see anything coming of this, Kelly."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I _want_ it to."

"Then what's the problem?" Severide asked.

"I don't know," Casey shook his head. "I just don't want a repeat of what happened last night...and I don't want to ruin our vacation...but I also don't think I can do this knowing in a week we're never going to see each other again...I don't..."

"Matt, you'll be fine, just take it easy," Kelly told him. "Maybe you're right, maybe this isn't going to be longterm, but there's nothing wrong with having a stepping stone in between to get back in the rhythm of things."

"I don't _want_ a stepping stone," Casey replied. "I want to be with a woman that I love, who actually loves me, why is that too much to ask for?"

His words hit Kelly like a punch to the gut.

"It's not, Matt, it's not too much to ask for."

"Then why is it no matter how hard I try, I never get it?" Casey asked hopelessly. "What am I doing wrong?"

Kelly wasn't sure what the right way to answer that was. "You just haven't found the right woman yet."

"What if I never do?" Casey asked.

"Then you'll be in the same boat as me," Kelly told him.

"Now I'm _really_ depressed," Casey replied.

Kelly laughed. "Buddy, you'll be fine, just take it slow, you know what you're okay with, don't push yourself."

"What if it turns out to be a disaster?" Casey asked. "What if it's just like last night?"

Kelly looked at him and told him, "Then you call me, and I'll come get you, and we'll pick up the pieces together."

Casey was visibly overwhelmed by his answer. He was practically shaking as he reached over and put his arms around Kelly and told him, "Thank you."

"Hey you got this, Casey," Severide assured him.

* * *

Casey closed his eyes and massaged his temples and groaned. He was exhausted, he was dizzy, he wanted to throw up.

He felt somebody sit down beside him and heard Kelly's voice. "Hey, you okay?"

Casey moaned and responded, "This is the most exhausting vacation I've ever been on."

"What's the matter, you didn't like the amusement park?"

"I've never been on a roller coaster in my life, and after that experience, I'm never doing it again," Casey told him.

Kelly laughed and said teasingly, "Poor baby," and leaned over and kissed Casey on the forehead.

"Between that, and getting sunburned on the beach, and nearly drowning at that water park," Casey recounted the day's events.

"And getting rear ended for two hours on the bumper cars," Kelly added.

"And sideswiped all around the track on the go-karts...I'm looking forward to going home and jumping into a structure fire," Casey told him.

Kelly chuckled and replied, "Yeah well I hope you saved some energy for the rest of the night when it's just you two alone."

Casey groaned and pressed his face against the tabletop. "What else is there left to do? We went everywhere today, we did everything."

"Well you two could just wander around the hotel, they've got a casino, a video arcade, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a _jacuzzi_, doesn't _that_ sound good after getting knocked around on the Scrambler?"

Casey laughed miserably.

"I don't know about this, Kelly."

"Aren't you having a good time?"

"I've had a great time, but it's been the four of us all day, I don't know what'll happen when we're alone," Casey confessed.

"Well I'll make it easier for you," Kelly told him, "Phoebe and I'll go back to her room, you take Melaina back to ours."

"That's not what I had in mind," Casey replied.

"Yeah, but it could work, and if it doesn't, you know how to reach me. But I know you'll be fine, trust me."

* * *

Kelly knocked on the hotel room door, from inside a voice called out, "Who is it?"

Kelly swiped the key card and entered the room, which he noticed right away was bigger than the one he and Casey were staying in.

"Phoebe?"

"In here," a voice called off from another room.

Kelly headed to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The redheaded woman was laying on a king sized bed with her ankle bandaged and propped on a pillow.

"What're you doing here?" she asked.

"We had a date tonight," Kelly said.

Phoebe gestured to her foot and pointed out, "I seem to recall throwing my ankle out earlier this evening when we got back from Family Kingdom, I think that took care of our plans."

"Well plans change," Kelly said as he set a brown paper bag with a bottle of chilled wine in it on the dresser, "We'll just skip the first part and go straight to bed."

The woman laughed as the firefighter charged towards her and jumped on the other side of the bed.

"You really are something, you know that?" she asked.

"So I've been told. Besides, I figured I'd leave our room vacant so if Casey and Melaina decide to hit it off, they'd have some privacy."

"Speaking of which, how'd you get in here?" his date asked him.

"I stole her key card as they were heading out," Kelly held it out in offering.

"At least she remembered it this time, she's always forgetting her keys."

The two of them looked at each other for a minute before Kelly asked her, "So, what do you want to do?"

She smiled coyly at him and replied, "Well I don't know what _you_ want to do, but before you came I was in the middle of a word jumble." She picked up a puzzle book and opened it to the page she'd been on and asked him, "What's this word look like to you?"

Kelly cocked his head at an angle and actually found himself trying to sound out the answer, none of which sounded remotely right. The two passed the evening drinking wine, watching TV and talking. After a couple hours Kelly got quiet and stared straight ahead with a somber look on his face.

"Hey, you alright?" Phoebe asked.

"Huh?" Kelly snapped back to attention, "Oh sorry, just thinking of something."

"Any guesses what?" she asked.

"Casey."

"Oh boy," Phoebe pushed up on her hands and scooted away from him by a couple inches, "This isn't one of those love triangle things, is it?"

Kelly did a double take. "No, definitely not. It's just that this is his first time out with a woman since his wife died last year."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Well...we found out after the fact that she...she was horrible to him...I mean she should've been in jail for what she did to him...and we had no idea...so he has a lot of expectations riding on this date and I'm just hoping he's not setting himself up for failure," Kelly explained. He hadn't planned to tell anyone about what happened while they were in South Carolina for the week, but for some reason he didn't see any threat in telling her that much of the truth anyway.

"So what exactly is he hoping for?" Phoebe asked.

Kelly rolled his eyes towards her in a knowing manner. "Trying to prove something to himself. It's been a hell of a year and he wants to find someone that isn't going to treat him like crap."

"Well Melaina's about as good a candidate as any in that regard," Phoebe told him. "That's her problem, she's too nice. A few years ago she was with this real prick, let him walk all over her, finally left his ass, thank God...you know, this is the first vacation we've taken together since she married that jerk." She laughed, "This sure ain't how I planned to spend my vacation. I guess nothing ever really turns out like you plan."

"That's what worries me," Severide murmured to himself.

* * *

Casey pulled back from Melaina and saw her eyes open in mild surprise. "What is it?" she asked.

"Sorry," he said as he moved away from her and sat up and pressed his knees to his chest and looked out towards the ocean. They'd come back to the beach, which was largely vacant that night, and everything had been going so well, until they started kissing, then a big red flag flashed through his mind.

"What's wrong?" his date asked as she sat up beside him.

"I can't do this," he answered.

Melaina adjusted her seated position beside Matt and shrugged her shoulders, "This is a first, usually guys don't say that until after they see my Caesarean scar."

Whatever Casey was about to say took the backseat as he turned to her and asked, "You have a kid?"

"I did, when I was 15," she answered. "She's in college now."

"Sorry, I didn't know," Casey said.

"Wasn't what I had planned, but it all worked out," she replied, then added, "But that dumb son of a bitch doctor botched the C-section _and_ the suture job as well..." she motioned her hands up and down the sides of her black one piece swimsuit with blue flowers and said, "there's a reason all my swimsuits are one pieces, _and_ why I don't usually go out in public without a control top."

Casey didn't know what to say, but he told her, "This isn't you, it's me...I...don't think I can do this."

"Do what?"

He looked at her, "I don't think I can go for a casual fling...if we weren't going back to Chicago in a few days maybe I..." he sighed, "I was married...my wife died last year."

"Oh my God," Melaina said, "I'm so sorry."

Casey fought with a small laugh that still came up. "Don't be...it was a bad marriage...I don't think she ever..." he shook his head, "I won't bore you with the details. It's just that this is the first time I've been on a date with a woman since it happened...and...I just don't think I can do this."

Melaina inched closer towards him and inquired, "And by 'this', you mean at all, or just the end result?"

"I like you," he told her, "I think I lo..." he cut off the sentence and looked back out towards the ocean. "But I can't start a relationship that's not going anywhere. My fiancee died, my wife died, and I can't stand getting involved with someone else who in a week isn't going to be there anymore. I'm sorry."

Melaina scooted even closer against Casey and said to him, "I can understand that...but, is there any reason we can't just be friends for the rest of the week and hang out together?"

Casey turned towards her and asked, "You'd be alright with that?"

"I like you too, Matt," she told him. "If I came to Chicago sometime, is there any reason I couldn't look you up?"

He shook his head.

"Well it's something to keep in mind," she said. "In the meantime I'm sure there's plenty more we can do on this beach before we go our separate ways."

Casey took a moment to let everything sink in, and he asked her, "So what do you want to do now?"

* * *

Kelly heard a banging noise, and first thought it was part of a dream then he realized that meant he'd fallen asleep. He opened his eyes and saw the lights were still on in the hotel room, and turning his head saw Phoebe asleep on the other end of the king sized bed, still with her foot propped up. She also started to wake up at the sudden noise coming from the room door out in the main suite.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Kelly reached over and grabbed the clock on the nightstand. "12:30."

"A.M. or P.M.?" she asked with a tired moan.

"I don't know," Kelly put the clock down and swung his feet onto the floor and stood up. He headed out to the main room and stepped towards the door that sounded like somebody was trying to break it down.

"Yeah yeah yeah, hold on," Kelly said with a yawn as he unlocked the door. "Who is it anyway?"

It was Casey and Melaina, both of whom charged into the room, Melaina made a beeline into the bedroom and flopped on the other side of the king and the room came alive with the chatter of both women discussing how the night had gone.

"What happened?" Kelly turned to Casey curiously.

"You took the key, remember?" Casey asked.

"Oh...what're you doing _here_?" Kelly asked.

"I'm doomed to a lifetime of platonic relationships with women," Casey said.

"Then why didn't you two go back to our room?" Kelly asked. At the look Casey shot him he replied, "What? It's not like anything would happen, right?"

Casey's response was a sharp jab in the stomach, which momentarily had Kelly doubled over moaning.

"Hey Matt," Melaina reappeared in the doorway, "Why don't you guys stay the night?"

"Oh I don't think so," Casey was adamant, "we wouldn't want to crowd in on you."

"Have you _seen_ that bed?" Kelly asked. "We could fit the whole Truck company in there and still have room."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Last chapter, thanks to everybody who read and reviewed, I hope you've enjoyed this story!

"So what happened?" Kelly had shown himself in to the bathroom while Casey was in the shower, trying to get every last grain of sand off of his skin.

The curtain pulled back enough for Matt to stick his head out and he explained, "I told her the truth. I like her but I don't see this going anywhere and I don't want to start something just for it to end like that."

"And she still suggested coming back here?" Kelly asked.

Casey just shrugged his shoulder in response.

"Well I know how hard this was for you, I'm proud of you, Casey," Kelly told him.

Casey didn't say anything but the look on his face told Severide everything. Honestly, after everything that he went through a year ago, Kelly was just thrilled that this far down the line, Casey could take a shower without having a panic attack and he didn't still have to wrangle the guy into the bathroom.

"I still feel like an idiot about the whole thing," Casey admitted. "I really like her, why is this so hard?"

Kelly looked at him and responded, "I don't think there's anything wrong with forgiving Gabby for what she did to you, but it doesn't mean you're over what happened."

"But it's been so long, I need to get my life back," Casey told him.

"I know...it's just going to take a little longer than you planned."

Casey nodded his head towards the bathroom door, "And in the process I lose out on something great because of my own hangups."

"Hey, she invited you to stay the night," Kelly reminded him. "Maybe all hope's not lost after all."

"Kelly, it's the four of us in the same bed," Casey pointed out. "That's not my idea of getting lucky."

Severide merely shrugged and replied, "Don't knock it till you try it. You might be surprised."

* * *

"I wake up looking at your ugly face again," Casey murmured the next morning as he and Kelly both started to wake up from the sunlight pouring in the windows. "Oh yeah, I'm _real_ surprised."

Kelly blinked his eyes a few times to focus and craned his neck and saw that the two of them were sandwiched between their dates who were still out cold on the opposite ends of the bed. He wasn't sure at first what had happened but as he thought about it, certain events of the night started coming back, most of them involving the four of them crammed in the bed watching TV as they emptied the contents of the room's mini bar.

Casey slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked around at the other occupants of the bed and turned to Severide with a simultaneously curious and amused expression about their situation. The two firefighters quietly scooted to the end of the bed to get out of there without climbing over their dates, they left the room and went to head back to their own.

"Do you remember what happened last night?" Kelly asked.

"Not really," Casey answered as they headed to the elevator, "but I feel like I need another shower."

Kelly chuckled in response.

* * *

By the time Casey and Severide met up with their dates again later that morning in the hotel lobby, they quickly found out that any plans they'd had for the day had been rained out, literally. They looked at the glass doors and watched the scenery outside get beaten down by a torrential downpour. Somewhere in the distance Casey could swear he heard thunder overhead.

"This is just terrific," he grumbled as they moved away from the doors.

"You think _you're_ disappointed?" Melaina told him. "I just took three months of surfing lessons for _zip_."

"Just as well," Phoebe replied as she limped along, "I doubt I'd get too far out there anyway."

The four of them made their way into the dining area and sat at a table, Phoebe commented, "Well somebody better come up with something or this is going to be a _long_ and _boring_ day."

Kelly didn't miss the look on Casey's face and half felt like crawling under the table. "Sorry, Casey."

"We fly a thousand miles to get away from the rain and the cold, and we're stuck in a monsoon," Casey replied.

"I _said_ I'm sorry."

"Oh well," Casey turned in his seat and added, "At least the company's an improvement."

* * *

The rain continued for three days and during that time Casey and Severide and their dates made the most of their stay frequenting the hotel's indoor pool, the casino, heading out to night clubs in the area. Casey never had any clear memory of how they got back to the hotel at night, or anything that happened afterwards, which made for some interesting mornings when he woke up and saw either all four of them were still in the bed, or somehow during the night Kelly rolled out and landed on the floor in a heap, which nobody else in the room had heard, one morning he woke up and he and Melaina were the only two in bed, he leaned over and saw Kelly and Phoebe had crawled under the bed with only their feet sticking out. Casey turned back over and moved closer to the blonde woman sleeping three feet from him. Despite the setback of the weather, he'd been enjoying their vacation and he hated to see it end soon. He really liked Melaina, and when he looked back and realized how close he'd gotten to her in a few days, how _safe_ he felt around her, something he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to do with a woman again, the first time he'd been out with a woman in years, the _first_ one he'd been with since Gabby died, he felt like he'd just scaled a mountain without noticing it.

He wished they wouldn't be going their separate ways in a few days, he wished there was some way that this relationship could continue, and he could see how far it actually went. Thinking back, he remembered Kelly's comment about a stepping stone to get him back into the dating scene. And he still resented that idea. He didn't want to think what had happened over the past week had been a 'stepping stone', something to give him a boost but had no real hope of becoming anything. He didn't want to, but he knew the truth was soon enough he'd go back to Chicago, she'd go back to wherever she came from, and they'd never see each other again. As much as that fact hurt him, Casey knew he'd always be grateful to this beautiful woman who had helped him, who _allowed_ him to jump in and take a chance and _not_ feel like it was just a matter of time before the past repeated itself and he couldn't trust anyone again. He was determined to leave that part of his life buried with Gabby at her grave, unfortunately he knew it would take a while to accomplish, but he looked at the blonde woman sleeping next to him with a small smile on her face, and considered this one giant hurdle he'd already cleared. He really thought he was going to be okay now.

Casey leaned over and lightly pressed his lips against Melaina's forehead, and quietly told the sleeping woman, "I love you. I'll miss you."

* * *

2 months later-

Nobody at 51 noticed their visitor until the blonde woman in blue jeans and a black leather jacket was halfway up the apparatus floor. The card game quickly came to a halt as everybody sat up and took notice.

"Hi," she addressed the men sitting at the table, "Does Matt Casey work here?"

Everybody merely nodded and pointed in the general direction of his quarters.

"Oh-kay," she said, "thank you." She walked past the table and called out, "Hi, Kelly!" as the Squad lieutenant returned from the bathroom.

"Hi-ah," Kelly turned and did a double take as he recognized the woman he'd automatically responded to.

"Who was that?" Cruz asked once she was out of earshot.

Kelly turned back to the others and was dumbstruck for a few seconds before his brain finally knew how to put together the words, "A woman we met back in Myrtle Beach."

* * *

Casey heard someone knocking at the door and craned his head up from the incident report he was working on, and felt his eyes double in size at the sight of Melaina on the other side of the glass. He quickly stood up as she turned the doorknob and came in.

"Hi, Matt."

"What're you doing here?" he asked in disbelief.

"You said to look you up if I was in Chicago, is that offer still good?" she asked.

Casey was so dumbstruck he couldn't even talk, could only stammer for a few seconds before he finally responded, "Uh, yeah, it is...it's...it's great to see you again."

The blonde woman smiled at him and replied, "It's good to see you too. I was hoping I wasn't too late and you'd found somebody else."

A choked snort was Casey's response. The truth was he'd had a few dates since returning to Chicago, all casual, most ended on the first night. He'd been on a couple blind dates, he'd even tried a speed dating service, he honestly hadn't minded that none of them had panned out, as far as he'd been concerned he was finding his rhythm again.

"Not hardly," he answered, and flashed a toothy smile at her before it turned to a look of confusion as he asked her again, "But what _are_ you doing here?"

* * *

"It turns out her great aunt died, who she hadn't seen for about 20 years, who it turns out made her sole heir of her property, which just so happens to be some antique house right here in Chicago," Casey explained to Kelly later during shift as they had a cigar break on the apparatus floor.

"You believe that?"

"If not, that's a hell of a story to make a thousand mile trip on," Casey told him. "Actually she asked if I could come over and look over the place, see what needs fixing up."

"I've heard of working relationships but that's a new one," Severide said with a laugh.

Casey shook his head, "Nothing like that."

"Not _yet_. Weren't you the one saying if you two could actually be together you'd pursue this?" Kelly asked.

"Could be," Casey puffed dismissively in an 'I don't recall that' tone.

"What's wrong?"

Casey looked at him through the corner of his eye and said, "She just showed up, she just got to town, it's all too new."

"Casey, this is _me_ you're talking to," Kelly felt a need to remind him. "Now what's really going on?"

Matt looked at him, took a nervous puff off the cigar and glanced down at the floor as he answered, "She liked me when she knew there wasn't any chance of this working out...now there is...what if it doesn't?"

"What if it does?" Kelly shrugged his shoulders.

"What if it doesn't?" Casey asked. "It's not like I thought she'd drop her whole life and move to Chicago just so that could happen...but...don't say it."

"Say what?"

"I guess the last couple months I was just hoping that something would happen and she _could_ come here..." Casey explained.

Kelly shrugged again, not getting it. "And now she is...so what's the problem?"

"What if she can't handle the baggage that comes with me?" Casey asked.

Kelly's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "Like what, your mom, your whole extended family at 51?"

"No! You _know_ what," Casey told him. "Everything I went through with Gabby, everything I'm _still_ going through now that she's gone...what if she can't handle it?"

Kelly took a slow drag off his cigar as he mulled that one over, and finally replied, "What if she can?"

"I don't think it's very likely, Kelly."

"You don't know."

"What if she can't? What if it's all for nothing and I'm alone again?" Casey asked.

Kelly thought that one over as well for a few seconds, and said determinedly, "Then you'll come over to my place and we'll pick up the pieces. That's all there is to it. But right now you got that woman practically delivered into your lap, you're an idiot if you don't at least take the chance."

Casey thought about what Severide said, and nodded uncertainly.

* * *

"Now what?" Melaina asked when he pulled away from her again.

Casey looked at her and couldn't come up with any words other than, "Sorry."

He'd spent the last couple weeks off shift helping Melaina get her aunt's house fixed up, and now that the place was actually inhabitable again, he'd decided he was out of excuses not to go forward with this. They'd had a quiet intimate dinner, a couple of drinks, and as the night wore on they'd gotten notably closer on the couch, and finally they'd kissed. And now _this_.

"What's wrong?" the blonde woman asked.

Casey tried to answer, but couldn't at first, then all he could come up with is, "...I don't think I can do this."

Melaina looked puzzled for a second, then her face brightened up as she said with a chuckle, "Oh I get it, you just remembered about my C-section."

"No, it's not that...definitely not that," Casey didn't want her to think what was happening, or rather _not_ happening, was her fault in any way. He sat up straighter on the couch and told her, "Something I need to show you."

"Now you're not gonna tell me _you_ have one too," she said cynically.

A small laugh escaped him. "No...nothing like that...uh..." he stood up and said, "Something I need you to see before this goes any further...then you can decide if it _does_ go any further or not."

* * *

"It's not what it looks like," Casey said as he pulled up his jeans, "I know that's what everybody says, but it's not."

Melaina hadn't said a word so far, she looked up at him from where she sat on the couch and said, "They look old...it's really none of my business."

"No...I want to be honest about this..." Casey had never wanted anything _less_, but he knew it was important.

In general Casey didn't consider himself to be an overly self conscious person. His job had awarded him with more than his fair share of scars during his career, over years most of them had faded and were no longer so noticeable to the unsuspecting eye. Others would take a few more years to become that inconspicuous. That didn't bother him. The bane of his self esteem was, and had been, and always would be for the rest of his life, those damn needle marks Gabby had left him with. It couldn't have been anymore torturous for him than if she'd branded him for the whole world to see, it already felt like they did.

"I told you about my wife, she died over a year ago."

Melaina nodded. She remembered.

"She was a paramedic," Casey sat back down on the couch, leaving a cushion in between them, "I found out a few months before she died, that she'd been drugging me...stealing stuff out of the ambulance, she was experimenting, wanted to see what kind of reactions I had to...medication I didn't need...and it went from pills, to needles...insulin, she was good at covering things up for a while, but towards the end she got careless and started giving me overdoses...stuff that counteracted with each other...the night she died, I was trying to get away from her...she chased me down an alley, and we were caught in a shooting...she was hit...died instantly."

The blonde woman was silent through all this and when she finally spoke, she told him, "I don't really have any idea what to say...I can't imagine what that must've been like for you."

Casey took in a shaky breath and forced himself to continue, "As bad as it was, what was worse was people finding out. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die...and I...you...I hadn't been out with anyone since she died...what we had in Myrtle Beach...I really liked you, and I _wanted_ it to work, but I wasn't sure what would happen if I told you...it was just easier to try and break it off before anything happened...and now you're here..." he shrugged helplessly, "I couldn't run from this anymore...so...now you know...and whatever you decide to do...if you don't want to get involved...I understand."

There was a heavy silence in the air between them once he finished, he could hardly even look her in the eyes, awaiting her response.

Melaina sat on the couch, one leg draped over the other, one foot kicking mindlessly in the air as she took this in. Finally she turned to him and asked, "You want to see my Caesarean scar?"

Casey closed his eyes, raised his hands to his face and just about doubled over laughing.

* * *

3 months later-

A gasp caught in Casey's throat as he shot up in bed and opened his eyes. The room was dark, he looked around, expecting to see Gabby. He'd heard her voice...he'd heard her coming to the bedroom, he knew she had another drug cocktail mixed and ready to administer.

The room was dark, it was silent, there was nothing except the sound of his labored breathing, and his pounding heart.

Then the rustle of the sheets as somebody on the other side of the bed moved.

"He-e-y," a tired voice said as Melaina sat up, "what is it?"

Casey looked around the room again. Gabby wasn't there. Gabby was dead. She'd been dead for a year and a half now. She was gone, and she could never come back.

"Nothing," Casey shook his head as he settled back down, "go back to sleep."

A tired hum caught halfway in Melaina's throat as she also laid back down and pulled the covers back up.

Casey lay there for a minute looking up at the ceiling, knowing he'd go back to sleep soon, almost wishing he wasn't.

The nightmares about Gabby didn't come often...he wished one day they'd finally disappear forever, but he knew that wasn't likely, but he'd taken them in stride just like all the other nightmares that had plagued him in his career. The people in the fires he couldn't save, the dead bodies pulled from the wrecks, they had all been real at one time, and would always be real for him, but if he couldn't let those take over his life, he couldn't let the memories of Gabby haunt him forever either.

Something cold and metal touched him. Casey's eyes widened for a second, then he relaxed as he realized it was the ring on Melaina's finger. Her _engagement_ ring. He'd asked her, and she said yes. They were going to be married.

The blonde woman turned over and her weight pressed against Casey, her arm draped over his chest, the cold metal of her ring touching his shoulder. Casey lightly grabbed her hand in his, raised it towards his face and kissed her on the knuckles just under the ring. He felt secure with her sleeping against him, he smiled as he felt her so called 'pouch' pressed against his ribs.

Casey wanted to laugh. A flood of emotions were rushing through him, somewhere in the midst of them all was a bittersweet melancholy as he realized, not for the first time in his life, but feeling more definite than it had when he was 18, or 20, or 21, or 25, or 30, that he was actually grown up, and getting older.

When he was younger he'd heard all the jokes of younger single guys vs. older married guys, and even not being married yet, he knew it was true. Everybody always said they only cared what was inside a person, most people might've actually believed that to some degree, but he knew there weren't a lot of young guys, especially ones who were not fathers themselves, who wouldn't pick a 'perfect' woman over one whose body was a roadmap of motherhood. And even though he had his own preferences of what he liked to look at, he had been able to admit to himself, as well as his fiancee, that he loved her stomach that had been left permanently stuck out from her botched procedure, still 20 years later with a vertical scar clear down the middle. She'd been very open early on in their relationship about all her imperfections, both the ones she took pride in as proof that she'd survived, and the ones that annoyed the hell out of her that she'd learned to live with. She'd explained as much as she loved her daughter, and being a mom, and how proud she was of her daughter, she still wanted to wring the neck of the doctor who had left her abdomen in her own words 'permanently gooked out' and, when her control top came off, made her look fat no matter what she did or how fit the rest of her body was. Casey didn't care, even though he knew the odds were good any kids of their own wasn't too likely, he loved the way her body looked, and felt, both in and out of clothes.

It was definitely true that his sex life with Melaina wasn't as wild and dirty as it had been with Hallie when he was in his 20s and early 30s, he didn't care. It was still hot and heavy, but the word that actually summed it up best, even though he knew it didn't sound right, was _comfortable_, something he never thought would be possible after Gabby, being with Melaina just felt right, felt like he actually _belonged_ with her, as if they were fated to be with each other. He'd felt the same way with Hallie, but it had been a rocky trip with a lot of ups and downs...part of it was time and age and experience, part of it was that careers weren't on the line by if they did have kids or not...when it was all added up, Casey felt ten times as sure that they were meant to be together than he'd felt when he and Hallie were together, and that they would make it.

After their first date back in South Carolina, Casey had found himself in Severide's arms, who was trying to restrain him from tearing the room apart in frustration that things hadn't gone as planned. Kelly had promised at the time if things didn't work out, he would help Casey pick up the pieces. Casey had recently found himself at Kelly's apartment in the middle of the night, in his best friend's arms once again, but for a different reason.

It had been the night he asked Melaina to marry him. He knew it wasn't really normal to spend the night with your best friend after proposing to your girlfriend, but he had to see Kelly. He didn't remember making the trip across town, he just remembered collapsing against Kelly, delirious with relief, that she had said yes. He'd _hoped_ she would, but he'd been expecting her to say no, and when that didn't happen, he wasn't sure what to do next. He remembered Kelly laughing at his confusion, not belittling him, just that way Kelly was when something good finally happened, offering his congratulations, wishing them all the best.

_"Thanks for everything you did, Kelly,"_ he'd told him, _"thanks for getting me through this."_

_"Hey, what're friends for?" _Severide had responded.

_"You're the only thing that got me through this past year...and the only thing that kept me from backing out of this."_

_"I told you you'd be fine."_

At the time it seemed too good to be true, and it still did. In time she'd met everybody at 51 and they all seemed to like her, Casey helped her fix up her aunt's house and when it was finished, he'd moved out of his apartment and in with her. All the pieces just seemed to fall in place like part of a master plan.

As much as he'd dreaded what the answer might be to his popping the question, that had actually been the easy part. The hard part for him had actually been telling Melaina that he loved her. He'd said it to her once before, back at their hotel room at the beach, she'd been asleep and hadn't heard him, so she couldn't let him know she didn't feel the same. It was a running gag that men simply could not say those three little words, to Casey, actually giving voice to them had been like jumping the Grand Canyon, so much was riding on how she would respond. For a long time he really never thought he could say 'I love you' to another woman again. Just thinking about it, he would think back to Gabby, to those last few months, when she had a new drug ready to try on him and was waiting for it to take effect. Even now, his own words haunted him remembering those nights.

_"Gabby, why are you doing this to me? I love you."_

And her answer also haunted him, and that's what terrified him so much about saying those words to someone else.

_"I know...and now you're going to prove how much you do."_

Just thinking about it, remembering, still made his skin crawl. He still cringed wondering how he could've been so complacent to something like that. He knew he'd already been under the influence when he'd consented to it and probably didn't fully realize what was going on, that didn't make the memories of it any easier to live with.

"Hey," he whispered, nudging Melaina on the shoulder. He felt her eyelashes fluttering against his arm, saw her raising her head to look at him.

"I love you," he said quietly, knowing she wouldn't know what it was about.

He could practically _hear_ her smile as she moved around to adjust the distribution of her weight against him.

"I love you too," she told him.

Casey would swear he could feel his chest swelling. A familiar sensation came over him, one he'd known when Gabby had him on the drugs, of seeing stars and feeling light headed and not being able to see straight, only this time it was the best feeling in the world for him, because it was the sensation of being in love, and it was such an intense feeling for him, because he _knew_ she meant those words. There was no ulterior motive this time, no hidden meaning to anything she did. She loved him, she accepted him as he was, she didn't care about his past, she didn't hold him to any expectations, he didn't have to jump through any hoops to make her happy. Night and day. When he came home from shift, she asked how his day had gone, if he was okay, if everything was alright, she was interested in what was going on with him. When he talked, she listened, when he had an idea, she heard him out, when he said he didn't like something, she was willing to compromise. He tried, and he hoped, that he was just as attentive and supportive of her as she'd been of him. So far Melaina didn't have any complaints, he hoped whatever magic there was between them never died out. As hard as he tried to keep his focus on what he was doing, these days he often found himself laying awake at night, tuning out to the conversations around him, because he couldn't believe the way his life was going now. He was so much in love, and this time loved in return, and he _knew_ it, and he could _feel_ it, and he didn't have to do anything to get it except be himself, that he was so unbelievably happy, almost delirious, he felt like he was walking on a cloud, he could hardly think straight. This time he knew it was a genuine feeling, not the side effects and the after effects of the meds that Gabby kept him strung out on. Back then he couldn't tell the difference in the two, because they'd been hand in hand for so long and he didn't even know it...now he _knew_ the difference, and he wanted to shake his head at the world he was living in back then.

"Hey, go to sleep," Melaina tiredly said.

Casey turned his head to look at her, "How'd you know I wasn't?"

"I can _feel_ you grinning, you pervert," she replied with a groggy laugh, "what're you thinking about?"

He smiled at her even though she couldn't see it, would swear he could feel his cheek bones being pushed up his face by his mouth. "I just can't believe this is happening."

"What?"

"All of this...that you're here...that you said yes."

Now he'd swear he could feel _her_ smiling as she responded, "You _better_ believe it, because I'm not going anywhere."

"Good," Casey leaned over and kissed her. "I love you."

The first time had been the hardest. It was easy to say those words now because he knew whatever she said, it would never be the same thing Gabby said to him.

Melaina hummed tiredly and told him, "I love you too." She moved her hand and poked him in the stomach, drawing a laugh out of him. "Now go to sleep."

He didn't though. Not right away. After he'd felt her rhythmic breathing against him and knew she was asleep again, he still stared up at the ceiling. The scars Gabby had left him with, both physical and emotional, would always be with him, no matter what he tried, he knew this, he'd come to accept this fact, he was still learning to live with them, but they no longer dictated how he lived his life. The night terrors, the memories of those days, might not ever fully leave him either...but he looked at the woman sleeping beside him and he knew at least he wouldn't be facing them alone anymore. For the first time in _years_, he felt all the things he'd wanted to be with Gabby: wanted, loved, desired, respected, an equal in something, all the mind games and the incessant demands and ultimatums that he'd put up with, they were all gone. And he thought that that was possibly the greatest feeling in the world.

Casey turned slightly on his side and draped his arm across Melaina's back and pulled her closer against him. _This_ was the greatest feeling in the world. With a profound sense of being contented, and safe, and loved, Matt Casey finally closed his eyes, and fell asleep.


End file.
